All I Need To Know, I Learned In Kindergarten

Bullshit.

All I need to know I did NOT learn in kindergarten. Yes. I learned to say please and thank you and you're welcome. I learned to share and to take turns and to "do unto others" as I wanted them to do unto me. I learned colors and shapes and numbers and that naptime was a great time to play "Wild Wild West" and be rescued by James West, played by my crush, James Tesh.

I did NOT, however, learn that sometimes I would love people and they just wouldn't love me back, that sometimes people are crappy for no apparent reason and there's not a damned thing I can do about it, or that I'd come to love adult beverages despite their horrid taste and that eventually there would be many of the things I didn't learn that would leave me craving it.

I didn't learn that the day I first heard my childrens' heartbeats on the tinny monitor in the doctor's office I would weep with the utter joy of it and I damned sure didn't learn that to love my children unconditionally would at times be the greatest happiness and at times the hardest trial of my life. I didn't learn about the value of friends and/or lovers who know your history and love you anyway, that gray hairs grow in the DAMNDEST places, that cooking can actually be therapeutic and enjoyable, that one day I'd quit buying wash & wear and learn to love linen, that my brother would die at 17 or my best friend at 34 and that I, by turns, would feel like I also wanted to die in dealing with the tragedy of their losses.

I didn't learn I'd have to put on my big girl panties when the going gets rough or that I'd smile and eat despite how bad the meal is that I've been served with love. I didn't learn that I would understand what it meant to hand my whole heart to someone, and I damned sure didn't learn that person would have the power to bring me to my knees by rejecting it.

I didn't learn that music would speak to me on multiple levels, that music would indeed be a soundtrack of my life, nor that music and lyrics could and would move me to tears. I didn't learn that a flaming bag of dogshit on someones doorstep who did unto me what I wouldn't do unto them would make me feel better, and I didn't learn that I would have the capacity to love so many people or that my love would be returned by just as many. I didn't learn that I would have puppies and kitties who would be like children to me, that they would comfort and love me boundlessly, or that I could lose them as easily as human family and mourn them as deeply.

I didn't learn that my joys would be so high or that my lows would be so bottomless or that I would be able to persevere, regardless. I didn't learn how limitless the human soul can be in its capacity to forgive nor how many times in a lifetime mine would be called on to do so. I didn't learn that there are evil people in the world whose transgressions far exceed human ability to comprehend, nor that there are victims of evil whose innocence I would cry for.

I didn't learn that I would come to believe so deeply in "truth, justice and the American way" or that I'd come to love fabulous hand-bags and runway shoes to distraction.

Kindergarten taught me a lot of important things that carried through in life, but it didn't teach me all I needed to know...

And it certainly didn't teach me I'd still be learning...