10 Things I Wish I Knew

1. How to Play Piano: I got into piano when I was seven. I would make up songs and write the notes into a notebook. Unfortunately for my parents, who bought me an electric keyboard for Christmas, I had no idea how to play. I used two sets of keys in the middle — I still don’t know what they’re called. I would read and write the notes as though they were meant for the tin whistle because I couldn’t understand how notes differed from instrument to instrument. I tried to learn how to play when I reached fourth class, but I was the only one in my class of eight who wanted to play piano, so my teacher convinced me to take up the guitar instead. My mum was happy — she used to play the guitar, so she gave me her old one. It was big and clunky, and it bounced off my legs every Tuesday when I carried it to school for music class. I was forgetful. I often just happened to leave it at home. After a while, my teacher got mad and started accusing me of doing it on purpose. I cried those days, I think. I never did take well to criticism.
2. How to Take Criticism: Not necessarily on my writing; I can generally take that. In fact, I do my best to welcome it. No, not on my writing. Any form of criticism of me, myself, and I by an authority figure was always a point of tears for me. I cried when my teacher got mad at me for not understanding the assignment of writing a report on a school event (when I wrote a slapstick, one-page piece instead of the serious, four-page essay she wanted). I cried when Mum didn’t give me chocolate because I asked for one instead of waiting for her to offer one. I cried when my principal hit my hand with a ruler (more of a tap, really) because I yelled at her for proper full-on hitting my only friend with it for writing with his left hand. I cried when that friend stopped being my friend a thousand times over twelve years, and again when I cut him off after he stole Mum’s phone. So yeah. Taking criticism would be a good thing to learn.
3. How to Stand Up For Myself: This was always an issue. I was bullied as a child— as you might imagine. One day, a few kids on the bus took books out of my bag. I used to do homework on the bus, so when they pushed my English book out the window as I got off, I called, “Thank you!” I thought I’d forgotten it on the seat, as I’d been like to do. Gran didn’t trust them. She drove me into karate in town, and then drove back up the winding rural road so slowly that the drive took her half an hour instead of ten minutes. She found five of my books thrown along the road, some run over, some in bushes, and collected them all. That night, my dad wrote a letter to my teacher that started a months-long battle over her not doing anything to rectify my being bullied. I begged him not to in case my teacher got mad at me. I think the first time I ever stood up for myself was the time I was hit with the ruler for yelling at my teacher.
4. How to Not Procrastinate: Apparently, procrastination is a coping mechanism that perfectionists and people with anxiety disorders use to prevent failure. Not consciously, of course, but our brains link not doing the work with not being judged or graded on it, and thus protecting ourselves from failure (even if not doing the work directly causes failure). Tests, essays, even things I enjoy, are put off in favour of a prison of a fluffy blanket, with Netflix as my warden. It is not as nice as it sounds; Anxiety and Depression are my roommates who like to knock me about the cell and then fuck me over whenever they get the chance. Netflix likes them. So does the prison blanket. They do more to keep me in there than anything.
5. How to Climb Trees: This is something that I would like to re-learn rather than learn from scratch. When I was seven, my cousins and I spent a week in Waterford. We went to the park and climbed the tallest tree we could find together. I got higher than them, too. Right to the top. My aunt screamed at me to come down before I fell, and I panicked and climbed down. I haven’t properly climbed trees since then. Maybe out of fear for a little bit, and then I forgot how. I wish I still knew. For those few seconds that I stood at the top, before my aunt yelled, as I stood on the last strong branch of the tree, I was powerful and free. Wind whipped my hair and limbs, coaxing me to fly, and I knew what painting with the colours of the wind really meant. The ground called me back to its muddy surface as loudly as my aunt. I was down, shaking with adrenalin, and my worldly realisation was gone, along with my memory of how to climb and how to paint with the wind.
6. How to Deal with Unwanted Noises: I get stressed by noise. Not all the time; sometimes I need noise to work. Every year, I watch films like Shrek 1 through 4 and whatever else Netflix suggests in the background as I study for my exams. But there are also times when the cat is playing that the smallest jingle of the bell around her throat will get me lost, make me cover my ears like it’s a church bell ringing with me as the clapper, thrown around and around and around inside. White noise is even worse at those times. The dull fuzz or ring in my own head that I can’t cut out, no matter how hard I press my fingers into my ears. That’s probably the most pressing thing I need to learn. But there is a reason it’s on this list — how do you learn to deal with everyday noises so hearing someone breathe behind you doesn’t make you want to stab them?
7. How to Talk to Children: Even when I was young, I never knew how to talk to children more than a year younger than me. My voice goes high and I wouldn’t use proper sentences. It was like I was talking to a pet. Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? Who got an A on his spelling test? You did! It wasn’t quite that bad, but it certainly wasn’t far off (It was actually “WELL DONE, JADE-Y!” when my friend Jade got her result, in the middle of class, followed by me petting her head). I want to have kids at some point — to adopt an older kid, maybe around ten or eleven. I think I can deal with children at that age more than a screaming toddler. I’m just so scared to commit to that because how are you supposed to be interested in the fifteenth brown-crayon blob with glasses a child produces, saying it’s you? Do you thank them? Or do you explain that it’s very Picasso derivative and that they should go back to the surrealism of Brown Blob №7?
8. How to Like Coffee: That’s an adult thing, right? We’re meant to like coffee. Not just its benefits, but the taste of it. I wish I did. I didn’t particularly like asking for a vanilla latte with eight vanilla shots every time I got a coffee last year. I hated the wide-eyed “Wooow,” from the barista. But with eight shots of vanilla or four heaped teaspoons of sugar, I couldn’t quite taste the coffee. It tastes different from its tea equivalent, but it still didn’t have that bitter aftertaste that makes me retch. I slowly worked down to one spoon of sugar or two shots of vanilla, but now am back up to two spoons after a short while of saying, “Fuck it, I deserve a little extra sweetness,” to myself.
9. How to Bake: This would be exceptionally useful, given my sweet tooth. With my dad’s baking skills, I probably should be good at it. And yet, in fifth year Home Ec, I managed to fuck up the un-fuck-up-able brownies. They didn’t rise, they burned onto the greaseproof paper, and my teacher nearly spat it out when she tried it. She said, and I quote, “Don’t worry, at least the assignment is graded on the written book rather than the result.” Thankfully, she didn’t mind in the least that I faked how it came out, but it would be cool to be able to offer someone a piece of cake and say, “Ah, yes, I just made this last night in my spare time.” Maybe I should stick to cooking breakfast and dinner instead. I at least know how to fry an egg.
10. How to Stick to Things: At some point or another, I have tried learning each thing on this list, and they all fell through. If I’m not good at something immediately, I drop it shortly after starting. The list of things I want to be good at is endless, but the list of things I want to learn that I’ve never tried before could hardly be called a list. Then again, I never have been very good at sticking to things, as you can see. Maybe it’s a waste of time trying to learn how. Oh, I could learn to ice-skate instead*! My friend has been trying to get me into that for a while!

*For the record, I did not learn how to ice-skate.