When I started college I was a music education major, I had been preparing for it since I was about 13. I knew I needed to be a music teacher. My main instrument was the saxophone, and my horn and I began at school ready to take on the world. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was in way over my head., and the first indicator was the amount of practice I needed to do to just get by. I had never needed to practice before. That sounds like an exaggeration, but it is really true. Other than the occasional practice of a few difficult bars here and there, I had been able to either sight read or just remember from the last time without needing any practice. If I had actually been a dedicated student, I might have been really quite good. I missed my opportunity to learn what value practice could have in my life and now as an adult, I look upon practice as torture.

Life is a funny thing and I think there’s definitely a sense of humor to the Universe. Something that I have discovered takes a lot of practice to get good at in my “grown up” life is patience, and that dang Universe has been giving me opportunities to practice a lot lately. There are instances in my day to day life which require patience, like talking to my mom and hearing the same stories over and over or being asked the same things or having to explain what she has forgotten. Being a mom takes more patience than almost anything else I know and poor Daughter gets to see my unpracticed patience fail me quite often. Even Christmas is a huge test of my patience- I try to give my family their gifts early. Having a bad day? I’ve got something under the tree for that! Husband learned quickly not to give in to this. It can escalate quickly.

Well, good old Universe has seen fit to give me some more practice. I’m waiting on a lot of things right now. Some are great. Some are not. It really doesn’t matter because I get equally as impatient for both. I will do my best and try as hard as I can to remember that i do not require perfection. Still, practice makes patient.