Why Didn't I Do That?

Regrets That Stay With You

If you had to name one regret you would want to correct, what would it be? I have one that always comes to mind. Learning the piano is my go-to. I have always wanted to learn to play. I think it's in part my DNA. My aunt was a talented pianist. She was a concert pianist in Argentina as a young woman.

When I was five or six years old, I spent a while in Argentina. I remember staying with her. She had a piano in her main living space. She played for us a little while we were there, and that was all it took for me to fall in love.

I come from a line of musical people on my dad’s side. My aunt was a consummate piano player. My uncle was a guitar player. His playing was as beautiful as my aunts’, with one caveat. He learned by ear, whereas she was classically instructed.

From that young age, I have had a love of music. Later, after my biological mother had abandoned us, and my dad had shown up to collect us from Argentina with a woman he called our mom. In her home, where we lived, she too had a piano. Mom played beautifully. Her daughter also played piano and had talent.

I loved music and wanted to learn the piano. I asked mom to teach me, but she never did. Her daughter would not take the time either. She didn’t care for my sister and me, maybe understandably, since we had invaded her life. I asked for lessons many times over the years, to no avail.

As I grew up, that love and desire to learn an instrument stayed with me, under my skin and in my heart.

My dad had a classical Spanish guitar. He did not know how to play it, but he carried it around his whole life, until the day he gifted it to my son. I tried to play it, even without instruction, but my fingers were too small to reach all the strings, and they lacked the strength to hold them in tension. That comes with practice, and I had nothing to practice.

Dad’s love for music was always there, but he never took up an instrument. He was told at a very young age that he had no ear for music, and that was enough to destroy his dreams of learning. He carried the guitar from move to move.

I was never able to get lessons. As a child, no one would provide me with that tutelage. In second grade, the elementary school I attended offered music as a class. Much like art, it was offered as an option a couple of times a week if selected. We would be taken out of a non-academic class period and go to music.

The piano was not an option because it could not be transported back and forth to school. I didn’t have one at home either, by then, since Mom and Dad were on the off cycle of their on-again, off-again merry-go-round. The guitar was not offered either.

What was offered were the classic school instruments that a school band would use. You know the ones. Brass instruments, flutes, and piccolo. A violin was also included because it was small and easy to transport, but your parents had to provide it. The school only provided the band-type instruments.

I wanted to learn music so desperately that I chose the trumpet. What a blunder that was. I stuck with the class for a couple of weeks. I didn’t really like the loud, brassy sound of the trumpet. I also disliked how my lips had to touch the instrument, which sometimes required spit, as I remember. That, added to the fact that my lips were always numb from the way you had to blow into the mouthpiece, waned my desire to continue. I gave it up.

Early in adulthood, life happened, and I forgot my dream of learning to play the piano. Then I had a child.

During pregnancy, I would often place earphones on my growing belly and play classical music for my baby. In his crib, I had a mobile I scoured the world for, which played beautiful classical lullabies. As soon as he could sit up, I kept toy musical instruments nearby for him to tinker with. I didn’t force him to play with them, but he did. He gravitated to them and pinged away at the toy piano. He mostly passed up the other toy instruments.

When our son turned four, we asked him whether he liked the piano and wanted to learn it. He nodded his little head and told us he did.

We bought a piano for our home, found a nice little old woman who gave lessons, and enrolled him in lessons. He was four, like I said.

The woman did not bore him with music theory at this age, but she taught him to read sheet music and play. He loved it. He seemed naturally inclined. He didn’t have to practice much, and he was just getting it. DNA. By the time he turned five, he had learned Beethoven’s Für Elise. He was so proud of himself that he played it all the time.

A couple of weeks later, he learned Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, one of my absolute favorites. He sat down to play it, and I cried.

He was talented and kept up his lessons until he was sixteen. By then, he had grown tired of lessons and practice and was deeply involved in competitive swimming. He asked to give up the piano, and we agreed. He was a talented swimmer with promise. Eventually, that waned too. He was growing into himself, and that should be encouraged, not held back.

The piano was sold. He went off to school and eventually moved to Colorado for his job.

Since he had never lived alone and had no acquaintances in Colorado, he wanted something to keep him busy and ease the boredom. So guess what? He went out and bought a keyboard and began playing again. He called me one day and asked me to listen to something, then played the Moonlight Sonata again. He said he felt like he was home. He missed his piano.

He had taken the guitar his dad had given him, later bought an electric guitar and a modern acoustic guitar, and started lessons again. He continues to this day and has even begun writing his own music on his fancy studio setup that he has built.

We gave him the gift of music. The love of music was always there in him, but we let it bloom. It was always a priority for us to make lessons available to him. I am proud of that and happy for our son. There is nothing more beautiful than music. It is art for the ears, transporting us to another dimension. It makes life more beautiful.

I still haven’t learned the piano. I still would have loved to learn it. Sometimes I ask myself, why not now? Why not learn now? The truth is, I don’t have time for it anymore.

I write all day and then draw or paint all night. That, along with running a household and working as a writer, leaves me with nothing left at the end of the day. I will always regret not learning, and that is okay.

Sometimes regret reminds us that there is always something we put off that we should pursue. For me, writing and being were the things I gave up for many years, for one reason or another. My passions were always in the creative arts. I was drawing as soon as I picked up my first crayon. Writing came later in junior high, but I loved it as much as art. I have always had something to say, whether through images or words; I had to express myself. Music would have rounded out that need for expression, no doubt, but you can’t have it all, no matter what anyone says. You always have to make choices. At this age, I chose my love of art and language.

It’s okay not to accomplish everything you want to do in life. Some things you pick up and hold onto again. Some things you leave behind and will always regret. I can enjoy my love for music through my son and, maybe one day, my grandchildren.

You will have regrets and pick things back up because they’re in your soul. There is always a need to fulfill what your spirit craves. Choose wisely.

#regret #life #lifelessons #passions #beinghuman

(Published on Medium)

If you enjoyed what you have read, read something I wrote on the lighter side. Or find my page and pick one yourself. (Alexandra Grant)

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash