The Gradual Art of Quitting and Feeling Okay About It
Shifting my perspective on a long-standing dream
So, this is how it ends, I thought to myself, when my son asked me if he could bring my guitar back with him to school. Winter break was nearly over and in three short weeks he’d admittedly made more strides than I ever had over the course of a decade. Any guitar callouses I’d earned were long gone.
“Sure” I replied. Any slight pause was me just trying to keep my voice neutral. I hadn’t picked up the guitar in years. What was there to even think about?
My husband had bought it for me when I was in my mid-thirties, a blur of a decade with my four kids in their neediest stages. A guitar signaled hope that there was still time to pursue my own passions and I did try to play it for a while — I even had a small guitar group — but my playing never got off the ground in any real way. The most recent decade had left it abandoned as if it were a living room painting of sorts, unhung, in the corner. A decoration for the only purpose of reminding me about possibility, or conversely, my inaction.
I almost felt a sense of relief when he asked — or at least the possibility of future relief — from the guilt I felt at not becoming a guitar player. It was such a good guitar. A present from my husband, he had researched them, bought me the best…
