Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will study. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. – Pamphlet M-10, Al-Anon Family Groups

My freshman year in college, I met an 80-year-old man doing scherenschnitte in the cafeteria. In those days, that small community college did not contain any significant number of what we now call returning students, or adult students, or non-traditional students, so he stuck out. I asked him why he was going to school. He replied that he wasn’t done learning yet. Big impression on me.

That same semester, placement testing landed me in college algebra, and I was flailing miserably. Questions were not permitted in class, nor outside it, I later discovered. I could not get help from the professor and did not know how to get help elsewhere. Lost from the first minute and never able to recover, I dropped the class in shame. Never had math defeated me before.

Years later, my younger cousins, who went to the same college, told me that this professor was notorious, and that savvy students avoided enrolling in any of his classes, even if it meant putting off those classes until transferring to university. Competition was fierce for seats in those courses taught by the other math professors.

I let this horrible experience scare me off math permanently. Permanently until now. I’ve recently checked out a book on basic algebra from the library, and am reviewing the topics I last felt comfortable with, getting back into practice, ramping up to climb that hill again. This time, I am older and wiser. This time, I know how to get help. This time, I know better than to think I am stupid or math-crippled or any other such thing. There is no reason to believe I am deficient in this area. I can but try it, and give it a true, honest try.

Just for today, I’m doing some algebra. I am not done learning yet.