MATH

I have been considering returning to school and getting an accounting degree. But my rocky relationship with math does not boded well for my planned career change. 

I failed grade nine math.

I put all the blame on my teacher, Ms. ______. I had either a personality conflict with her or misplaced sexual feeling that manifested themselves in a deep rooted animosity that sprang from her attainability. Either way, I failed that class. I was also terrible at math though, too. I couldn't make sense of it the same way my grandmother couldn't make sense of the Beatles; it's evident millions of people get it, but to you it is white noise.

My failure led to a stint in summer school in the next town over. I stayed with my great aunt Aleigh, my grandmothers sister, who actually had a deep appreciation for the Beatles, Gilbert and Sullivan and wine coolers. Immersion learning was far more effective than tortuously stretching it out a whole school semester. Sure, after I solved the last equation on the final exam I immediately forgot everything I learned in the previous three weeks. But retention was not the point, the point was to get a letter grade - any letter grade - better than a 'D'. It worked.

So, why accounting?

I have a dream. Nothing noble or altruistic like Martin Luther Kings dream, but a dream all the same. I imagine getting my accounting certification - putting roots down in a small coastal town, driving the kids to little league games, playing horseshoes with friends on the weekend while consuming far too much craft beer and dabbling in yoga/kayaking/freeclimbing/recumbent bicycling/surfing/paddle boarding, or whatever soul staunching activity is recommended in the local rec-centres Fall/Winter guide.

The problem, besides my atrocious math skills, is that I vacillate nearly hourly between that and wanting to be an artist. Nothing focused, it just depends on what I have last watched, read or eaten. I may want to be an actor or pinstripe classic cars from my grimy home garage. Sometimes I want to produce high quality limited edition coffee table books about the crusades, or perhaps write a novel or direct arthouse films and give them one word titles like Desolation, or Myopic, or Sandstone.

The more I learn about artists, those who have achieved expertise and success in their chosen medium, I realize they did little else but work tirelessly and obsessively since their late teens. The recognition many of these artists experience just shy of middle age is the culmination of years and years of hard, frenetic, arduous work. Math might be a bit easier.

So, there it is: two choices, but neither wanting to abandon one, or wholeheartedly commit to the other, I resign myself to my mundane factory job and skim by paycheque to paycheque just shy of middle age, the culmination of years and years of hard, frenetic, arduous waffling.

Although I would like to, I can't blame Ms. _______ for my present predicament. Life is not like math, there is no summer school if you flunk out. Do I get a do-over? I'd gladly go sit in a stuffy classroom with other adults, hemming and hawing on the precipice of BIG decisions. At this stage of the game the only choice that really makes any sense is to just say "fuck it," go and buy an off-the-rack Brook Brothers suit and crunch other peoples numbers, albeit poorly. It might not be the path of the great artist, but I might be able to go paddle boarding with him on the weekend.