Music Is My Unachieved Long-Term Goal.

I guess I’ve really been kind of lucky.

See, somehow, I’ve always been pretty good with achieving my life goals.

From living in France to working in the music industry to earning my advanced degree to moving to New York… and on and on and on.

Been there. Done that.



But then I think back to the people that I knew in high school who haven’t been so lucky. One was going to be a Hollywood filmmaker, one was going to be a national news reporter, and many others had aspirations as unique as their fingerprints. But somewhere in the stack of discarded calendar pages, most got sidetracked and forgot those goals.

I’ve often wondered… what makes me different? Why did I achieve, and not forget, mine?

Maybe, to quote Guided By Voices, it’s my “Surgical Focus,” or my determined stubbornness, or my obnoxious refusal to settle for anything less. Maybe it’s the fact that I have no interest in children.

But whatever it is, it’s worked.

For the most part.

While I’m not proud to admit it, there have been a few goals throughout my life that, for one reason or another, have resulted in Epic Fail:

Those goals include:

1. Having a high school summer job as a pool lifeguard.
Unfortunately, while I could have done the sitting-in-the-chair-and-looking-cool-in-my-sunglasses-thing perfectly, lifeguarding is typically not a job option for individuals who cannot swim.

2. Finishing my novel—a John Hughes meets Friends meets National Lampoon’s European Vacation romp about my time in France.
Dorothy Parker once said, “You never know about your own,” meaning that an author can never really tell when their own work sucks. Fortunately, Nabu, the Babylonian god of writing, permitted me such insight, and I opted to cut my losses by abandoning the project. I think that such guidance was particularly nice of Nabu, considering that I am not Babylonian.

3. Being Sharona.
What devoted music junkie hasn’t held a secret desire to have a song written about them? Call me shallow, but I always thought that would be insanely cool. Despite having numerous musician friends over the years, it just never happened for me, and, now, it most likely won’t. The reason? I’m probably too old to be the subject of a cool, edgy rock song… and “Mrs. Robinson” was already written about someone else.

4. Driving Route 66, preferably in a 1950s or 1960s convertible with Johnny Rivers on the AM radio.
The trip was actually supposed to happen this past summer after I completed The Very Big Test, but it had to be aborted in favor of a staycation in the fun-filled roller-coaster-packed themepark that is global economic collapse. As the ride has not yet come to a complete stop, my hands and feet are firmly still inside the car… a car that is, sadly, not on Route 66.

5. Learning to play the guitar.
Ever since I discovered rock and roll, I have been in total Head Over Heels love with the guitar.

Seriously.

It’s a little weird… kind of like that Swedish woman who married her guillotine.

Between the sound of the instrument—be it acoustic or electric, the resulting music, the different colors and styles, and the fact that all the cool kids play it, the guitar, to me, is just this perfect, beautiful, irresistible thing.

Plus, my original guitar was a plastic toy with a large picture of my first crush, Shaun Cassidy, stickered on it. I think that probably made a lasting subconscious impression.

The result is that I just have this “thing” for the guitar, and, throughout practically my whole life, I’ve always wanted to learn to play it. But it was hard… lessons weren’t offered through the school music program, so you either had to teach yourself or take private lessons. As I figured my parents probably couldn’t afford private lessons, I did my best to teach myself… but it never really worked. Despite successfully learning the fingerings for three or four chords, playing the guitar was always like Second Life to me—I was there, but I was never quite sure what I was supposed to do.

But, after all these years, I feel like I’m finally on track with this particular goal.

Sort of.

As my graduation gift, my boyfriend is paying for me to take guitar lessons. In just five short sessions, I’ve built upon the chords I already knew and learned different strumming patterns, palm mutes, scratching, and arpeggios. And, instead of generic Appalachian folk songs, we’re learning it all in the context of classics by The Beatles, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Smokey Robinson, and Ike and Tina Turner.

Hells, YEAH.

The other week, I actually learned how to play the intro to “My Girl.”

It’s, like, the coolest thing ever.

The only problem?

I still totally suck.

I can practice the “My Girl” intro over and over again… and I still hit the wrong strings. I can practice the “Proud Mary” scratch over and over again… and my bottom E string still rings.

Intellectually, theoretically, and philosophically, I understand everything that I am supposed to be doing. But getting my fingers, the pick, and the strings to move how they’re supposed to move, in the right timeframe, without hitting anything else continues to be an epic quest.

It’s so incredibly frustrating… both because I can’t do what I’m trying to do, and, hell-o!, to paraphrase Anthony Michael Hall in The Breakfast Club, “Have you seen some of the dopes that [play guitar]?”

Jimi Hendrix was probably the greatest guitarist in the history of rock and roll, and he was on drugs.

Keith Richards can stand there, on every controlled substance known to man, some that haven’t been invented yet, and possibly even his father’s ashes, and he plays guitar like a total badass.

I sit here, a picture of sobriety, and can’t do it.

So the question becomes… what in the hell is wrong with me?

I’m starting to wonder if it’s maybe one of those things like speaking a foreign language, where the more messed up you are, the better you do it.

But I doubt it.

In a way, learning to play the guitar is like learning to be a Jedi, and my attempt often reminds me of that scene where Luke Skywalker is trying to hit the floating ball with his lightsaber. He knows what he has to do, he can’t do it, so he gets frustrated and tenses up. Then he really can’t do what he’s trying to do. He wants it all to come easy to him so that he can be an instantaneous Jedi, just as I want the guitar to come easy to me so that I can immediately rock “September Gurls” or the opening riff to “You Shook Me All Night Long.”

The good news, for me, in that analogy is that Luke Skywalker ultimately defeated the Empire and saved the universe.

Playing Big Star should be substantially easier.

I’ve reached the point in my life where I realize that, if the afore-mentioned five points are my greatest failures, I am very, very lucky.

Nowadays, I’m ok with not being a lifeguard in high school, not finishing my novel, and not getting that song.

The Route 66 trip is merely deferred.

But learning to play the guitar? I’m not giving that one up so easily.

I can do it… and I will.