Life’s Simple Pleasures
I’ve never been a master of the simple things.
For example, upon finishing driver’s ed., the instructor thoughtfully called my parents to give them a casual heads-up on what skill they could help me perfect before the big day. Grateful for this courtesy, my mother anticipated a suggestion that I might put a little extra time into, say, parallel parking. Three point turns, maybe? Hell, even “coming to a slow stop” would have been less shameful than what the instructor actually had to say: “I think Katie might benefit from more practice on her right hand turns.”
My mother still pulls this gem out whenever possible. There’s nothing she likes more than such a perfect example of my “endearing neuroses.” So anxious about the hard parts, I struggle with what is inherently easy.
Other such examples of my staggering inability to master the minute include the four-week -long hell storm that was learning to tie my shoes. This consisted of exactly one attempt per day, followed by a temper tantrum comparable to that of an infant, and concluding with the vow to never wear shoes again.
Learning to ride a bike without training wheels was more of the same. If two heads are better than one, why aren’t four tires better than two? I simply could not wrap my mind around the fact that a couple thin pieces of rubber should be trusted to uphold my hulking 50-pound frame. All that stood between the delicate skin of my knee-caps and the jagged battlefield of a sidewalk was some bouncy plastic? Sorry, not happening.
As the youngest, least patient, and most spoiled member of my family, I saw it as my prerogative—my duty even—to vocalize all displeasures and frustrations as often as possible. Take an easy coming-of-age task like swallowing a pill for example—this eluded my single-digit-self like rocket science.
Perhaps this “flaw,” if you’d like to take it so far, is due to an insane focus on mastery of the difficult so distracting that I can’t focus on the simple.
It’s possible it’s genetic: my dad has yet to master the email. Or maybe being raised by a psychoanalyst doubling as a mother ingrained in me certain over-analytical idiosyncrasies like this one. The daunting task of something that should be “easy” becomes a challenge you can’t mess up. The possibility that I might be known as “four wheels” to those in the below five foot club became a threat to my very existence as an over-achieving and successful child.
Fast-forward a decade or so to my first real internship. Bringing first job jitters into this idiotic equation that is my approach to life, it was clear that any attempt at success in this new realm they call “the office” would be futile. For someone who sweats the simple stuff, a summer internship in midtown Manhattan is a veritable hell on earth. Life hands me lemons, and I can’t even figure out how to slice them.
Case in point: photocopy machines. I assume that at one point in time they were rather straightforward, much like computers, cell phones, and Facebook. But whoever “perfected” this contraption should have their eyes stapled shut. For what reason must it be so difficult to duplicate a piece of paper?
Or take the time I was sent to obtain a copy of People Magazine that contained an important book review. Two Duane Reade’s and three subway stations later, I returned triumphant, with that week’s special “Brangelina” cover in hand. I was so confident in my ability to handle this simple task that I didn’t even bother to look inside the magazine. This was not treading water, or even mastering the ever-elusive cartwheel. This was easy, and I was (almost) a college graduate.
In typical fashion, I had purchased the wrong magazine. And I also spent 20 minutes trying to put the pages of a manuscript in their correct order after the photocopy machine had the audacity to spit them out completely and inexplicably mixed up.
In spite of these small road bumps, however, I have made some progress. You can often find me sporting Converse sneakers (laces self-tied), and if I were unfortunate enough to live in the Quad or have an athletic bone in my body, you can rest assured that I would be the proud owner of a two-wheel bike. I can stay afloat in a pool, and somehow I did learn to do a cartwheel. I even welcome my future of battling photocopy machines and printers with open arms (I make no promises regarding fax machines however—these remain a mystery).
The truth is that we can’t all be immediate experts in every realm of our lives. I happen to be living proof of this. It’s been a long road to mastering the simple, and one I haven’t reached the end of—but I’ve come to accept and even embrace that. So long as I never have to make a right hand turn along the way, I have faith that I’ll make it there okay.
—Kate E. Cetrulo ’09 is an English concentrator in Eliot House. She will drive you anywhere you need to go...if you dare.