question free-write; 7.7.8

things id like to know:

1. why cant i ever drink all my milk before it goes bad?
2. what's so hard about cooking that it baffles me?
3. do i have a learning disability?
4. are there secrets in my left brain that ill never know unless my right brain ceases to function?
5. am i doing enough activities to exercise my brain?
6. why is being alone, sitting still and silent, so hard? will it ever get easier?
7. why do i forget all the important lessons that i learn?
8. what will happen when i rekindle that broken relationship?
9. am i deceived when i think that my marriage is healthy?
10. how can you ever really trust a person, absolutely; especially when you find that they have lied to you before?

well?

3. ive always wondered if i had a learning disability. ever since i could remember, some things have been hard for me to remember, or to even grasp in the first place. numbers especially, like in math or dates in history. historical or geometrical facts next. my mom eventually gave up teaching me to tell time when i was in elementary school. for some reason, i couldnt understand how to figure it all out, especially with one glance at the moving hands. it wasnt until much later, and many digital clocks with blinking red numbers, that i taught myself--or rather, continued my education in the time-field. this was a point of good-natured jest to me in college when i released the information (for who knows what reason--a moment of delicious shock on their faces? it made me different than others, didnt it?). however, to this day...years after college and several full-time, professional jobs that include time-telling as a necessity, and a few years of successful marriage and i still count by fives to discover the time of day, and double check myself often when deciding how long a casserole should be in, or the chicken on to boil. it wasn't just the numbers on the face of a clock that gave me...complications. its numbers anywhere...everywhere. ive past numerous simple math tests on job applications, but when that old gentleman is standing before me at the register and he's given me an amount of change so that he can get certain coins back and ive already punched in some amount on the screen so that the computer's calculator is no help, and the drawer full of money is standing open with a huge line behind his wrinkled form, bent over a cane, peering into my face, disgusted with my under-developed math skills, i am hopelessly lost in the matrix of numbers scrolling through my brain. or when i am adding a tip on my receipt so that my bill will be an even number...or when im measuring something so that lengths and widths and depths match up or so that i can buy the right amount of soil...or when im trying to follow a recipe written for two in order to feed 12...i am incapacitated...my mind shuts down like C-3P0 when the plugs been pulled.
i wish i could say that was it, but its history and geography, too. i can never remember where, exactly, things are on the map, nor how to get to the place ive been a million times before when ive missed my turn or been blocked off my construction. ive learned the capitals of the united states several times, but they fly out of my head after several moments of un-use. i cant recount the times my husband has relayed the times, dates, locations and significance of the SAME historical events, battles and people only to have to re-tell them when the subject is brought up again. i dont know many of the presidents that have impacted my country, cant remember the dates of the civil war and couldnt tell you in what era people were riding around in buggies or wearing those dresses with huge bone hoops underneath. it takes a long, patient process to explain much of anything to me, and there's no guarantee it will stick. in fact, not much of anything sticks to the walls of my slimy brain unless there's a gigantic picture or chart pinned in there with it.
English, words, literature, language...tend to be a different case (or so i hope, as ive made it my career). why grammatical structure fascinates me and i am able to retain facts, is beyond me. i love the systematic process of writing a beautiful analysis, or the careful dissection of a story to get to the palpitating heart of its mystery. with all of my other educational failures, i wonder if this indicates that these fields use little of the brain and require minimal thought or skill. if this is true, then why are random combinations of these things we call "words" (in the English tongue, of course) into larger structures ("sentences" and "paragraphs" to be precise) capable of calling forth, manipulating emotions, like lion tamers or perhaps fisherman? how are they able to touch such a complicated variety of people in such unique ways if the art itself is not complicated or unique?
this thought-a fragile light bulb whose filament is barely glowing, but burning all the same-is what keeps me from turning myself in, taking some test, and letting some person in a suit behind a desk give me a white slip of paper that has me sinking money into their brand spanking new yacht that ill never get to ride.