The Learning Curve

I've always loved learning.  I learned how to read before starting school and was always so excited to go. The end of the school year always brought a barrage of tears and lamentations, followed within days with cries of boredom.  The first day of the next school year brought me almost palpable excitement:  how would my new teacher be?  Who would be in my class?  What would we learn?  What field trips would we go on? (I think it took me until sixth grade to realize that the only answer to THAT question was the game preserve, where I developed my lifelong fear of attack goats, and the fish hatchery.  Seriously.  Every. Single. Year.)

College was an amazing time I didn't want to end.  I even took anatomy and physiology at the community college one summer for kicks (but dropped out mid-semester because I got too wrapped up in the drama of my mentally unstable lab partner.  Yes, seriously.)  My current student loan balance shows you just how much I loved learning (though clearly not about math.  Or finances.  Or budgeting.)  If I could afford to take some classes today, I wouldn't think twice about it.  I love learning that much.

So instead, I do two very simple things:  I read and I talk to people.  And I keep learning in every interaction, in every conversation, in every situation - good or bad.

A dear friend of mine was in a very serious car accident last week and is still in the hospital.  He & his wife have a three week old daughter and a four year old son (who thankfully decided he didn't want to go to preschool that day or he might have been in the car.)  Ultimately, my friend will be all right but he has a long recovery ahead of him - or shall I say more correctly, they have a long recovery ahead of them.

I know people go through serious things all the time in this life.  It just feels like since I moved, my friends and family have faced some really, really difficult challenges.  And I'm not there to do anything.  To make a meal. To babysit.  To make them laugh. Or to just be there.

I feel so helpless.

I'm sure there is a lesson in all of this.  I know there is a lesson in everything I've been experiencing for the past 9 1/2 months.  But right about now, in this situation, I'd rather not be learning...I'd rather be doing and being there for those I love.