My Bucket List

 I am not a regretful person. I am content with most of my decisions. And when I have made judgment errors either I have forgiven myself, or tried to understand the lesson learned. And if the regrettable thing was something that was within my capacity to correct, for the most part, I made correction my mission—even if it was futile.

I do not have a bucket list—or at not least anymore. There was only one thing on my bucket list—only one regret I had—and that was that I never learned to type correctly—nowadays it is called keyboarding. I keyboarded by the hunt and peck method.

When I was in high school there were only 2 curricular paths to take after tenth grade: business or academic. And once you chose a path, there was no overlap—the schedule did not allow for it. So if you were on the academic path and you wanted to learn typing or steno you were out of luck. And even though the school offered a personal typing course, it conflicted with the higher level science courses. And so since I had chosen both an academic curricular path and took higher level science courses, I never learned to type.

And for many years I managed to get by with my hunting and pecking. Many people were unaware that I had no typing skills. I always got my work done. But it bugged me that I had never learned a skill it seemed the entire world knew how to do. So when Kara went off to college and my nest was finally empty I decided to scratch the one thing I had off of my that list—to correct my one regret.

Now I had wanted to take some adult education course for typing---but there was none to be had. I learned that there was no longer a need for the offering—apparently I was the only person in all of Nassau County who either did not know how to type or cared enough to learn. There was only one option to me—a Microsoft Word and keyboarding class offered by Nassau Community College. And  It was a true undergraduate course. It was a requirement for people seeking a degree in office technology--three credits worth. If I wanted to learn how to type I had to go back to college.

And despite total and absolute paralyzing fear, I registered for the course. Which in of itself wasn’t easy. I had to prove that I had a diploma/transcript from high school, college or graduate school. I no longer had any of that. My graduate school wanted too much money for a transcript and my college needed several weeks to prepare the paperwork—my transcript was too old. I imagined some poor work study student climbing down to the bowels of a basement somewhere to blow off the dirt and dust off of a moldy box that contained some yellowed paperwork. But as I am a bit of a pack rat I went into my attic and found my high school diploma and the little laminated card of proof that came with it. That would suffice. The registrar at the community college reluctantly let me in. I was officially back in college.

And I had to do all the things college students do. I had to get an ID and a parking sticker. And I needed to go to the book store to get my books. And I felt ancient. And I felt even more ancient on the first day of class. I was the only person besides the professor that was over 20 years old. I texted on my Blackberry before class  just to look like I fit in. I spoke on the cell phone with my mother in between class and the parking lot. I wore my Uggs and hoodies.

And it was HARD. Untraining  my fingers to do what they had done for 49 nine years was nearly impossible. And I had 10 hours of homework a week and I had 6-8 hours of lab work to do. And I had to sit in class and pay attention for 2 hours three times a week without a break. And I had tests to study for and practical typing quizzes. I had to focus and raise my hand. I bought typing tutors and Word books. This was a real class--and I wanted to succeed.

And just as I had been in my younger days; I loved learning. I loved school—even though my teacher could have been Marie Braccia’s (the retired principal of Stewart school) younger sister—she was that menopausal and rigid. But I learned to type about 35 words per minute and I really understood Word—I even taught my friends and husband a thing or two. And Barbara, the manager at Madison-Taylor Salon gave me the student discount on my haircuts.

In the end, it was all good. The teacher even took an interest in me. I accomplished my goal and I was happy with my success. I would never win any typing contests, and I still prefer to look at the keyboard when I type, but my fingers figured out where to go—I no longer had to hunt and peck—I was proficient. And that was all I needed or wanted to be. And when I do my writing, I can type as fast as I can think-- and that is good enough. Sometimes good enough is good enough. Sometimes a bucket list needs only one item. Maybe you just scratch things off as you go along so the list never develops length. Or maybe it means you are content with things as they are--you have no regrets.