Incompetent at Life

I've become incompetent at the things I once excelled in. For example, motor skills. I used to have some of the best cursive in my class (in the third grade, when I stopped using it), and now when I sign documents and checks, my father makes fun of my handwriting. The situation has grown so dire, in fact, that my mother has signed me up for handwriting classes.

I also used to be very good and cutting and gluing things. I could cut freehand hearts without tracing them first, excellent circles, even animals. Oh, and I could make those cool chains of people holding hands when you unfolded the paper. I would then glue these things in with great proficiency. No longer. I am making a children's book for my English final, and it involved much cutting and gluing. I have discovered, while working on the project, that not only can I not cut shapes, I can't cut in a straight line. I also can't use a glue stick anymore. I carefully ran the glue across the paper and stuck it to the other paper. When I flipped back to the theoretically glued paper, however, large bits on the end were curling up. How can you be bad at using a glue stick? I baffle myself, sometimes.

I suppose it is easy to be good at anything you devote hours and hours of every day to. And that essentially was all I did as a child, between recess and sleep and television was cut and glue things, and occasionally draw people. I am glad to report that at least my depictions of people have improved. I always drew women as triangles with a circle on top and some stick arm and legs, neglecting to provide both a torso and a neck.

I also used to be able to do handstands. And headstands. And some crazy upsidedown move against a wall. All I can manage now is a somersault and a cartwheel. I can walk and ride a bicycle and walk on a balance beam, but balance on my hands is something that now eludes me. Perhaps it is because of my fear of falling. When you're little, you have a shorter distance to go. But as soon as I get on my hands, I start swaying and I fear that I will fall on my back and have the air knocked out of me. And my head simply hurts when I attempt handstands.

And when I was 11, I was an HTML whiz. We're talking impressive stuff here, complex layouts, fireworks, the whole shabang. Now I can barely remember how to make a table or insert a picture. My parents were so proud of their having a math/science oriented daughter, but suddenly things took a turn for the worse, and I discovered creative writing. But I still watch nature and science shows in delight.

The only conclusion to be drawn from all of this is that I have simply grown more incompetent at life, at least in terms of the things that are cool to a second grader. I find it increasingly difficult to interact with them because even though I am the ever-desirably aged teenager, and therefore the epitome of cool, I fail in doing the things that they do simply. The humor me and keep their mockery of me to a minimum, which I appreciate. But here's the question: at the rate I'm going, will I even be able to run by the time I'm forty?