Use it or lose it

I recently got an e-mail from Millsaps’ volleyball coach; she’s organizing a reunion-type thing and wanted to see if I and my fellow volleyball alumni would be interested in trying to put together a game against the current team. I’m glad I didn’t have a mouthful of food or beverage at the time because it surely would have gone spraying out of my mouth and/or nose as I laughed hysterically. I don’t even remember the last time I picked up a volleyball. So to get out on the court with a bunch of other ladies who probably haven’t picked up a volleyball in close to a decade and try to play a game against the young’uns would be interesting, to say the least. Ultimately, I guess I’d be willing to go for it…maybe I’d surprise myself.

Which got me thinking (things get me thinking a lot, it seems) about all the things I used to be pretty good at…and now I’m not.

1. Volleyball

2. Algebra. Or calculus. Or really any type of math beyond the basics. Math was never really my "thing", but I could hold my own. Those days are no longer.

3. Piano (and music theory). 12 years of lessons – 12 YEARS?!?!?!? I used to have a nice catalog of music committed to memory, along with all those musical terms and whatnot. Maybe some of it’s just hidden in some dusty file cabinet in an unused closet of my brain. I have a feeling it would take a while to find.

4. Spanish. I was a Spanish minor, for goodness sake! I even started to get decent at conversational Spanish. And then I graduated. And it’s gone. This one I really regret.

On the other hand, I guess there are some skills I’ve acquired or gotten better at, like cooking and crocheting (not at the same time, of course!). I’m better at crossword puzzles than I used to be. I’m a little more organized (always a work in progress). Sometimes it’s just hard to swallow the fact that a certain skill or understanding or cluster of knowledge is just…lost! Use it or lose it - so true!!