It will just click…

“Don’t worry—everything will just click. “

I’ve heard this phrase a few times. Most recently it happened during a medical appointment. Another memorable time happened in a conversation with one of my kid’s teachers.

Hmmm—it will just click? What does that even mean? Will everything that is a struggle now just one day be easy? Does the struggle bus I (or my kid) seem to love simply stop coming to my house? Will this click happen spontaneously, with little effort? Seriously??

Yeah, I’m calling BS.

Nothing just clicks, at least not for me.

I DO love the sound of it though. It seems…magical.

I have always loved school, but I studied a lot. Math didn’t just click. Science didn’t just click. Picking a major in college didn’t click. Having kids and becoming a mother didn’t just click. Dancing, singing, writing, mothering, cleaning, cooking, driving, organizing, decorating, shopping, planning, reading—

nothing just clicked.

Everything I have done, or am trying to do in my life, has taken quite a bit of effort. I have floundered, struggled, flopped, choked, slipped, crashed, and bombed. Sometimes I have given up. It’s not tragic…it’s just reality.

Back in the late 90s, before Brian and I got married, I decided to make us dinner one night. The recipe was easy, and my confidence was soaring. All I had to do was pull the pan out of the oven. That’s so easy, right? Well, I still can’t figure out what I was doing, but as I pulled the pan out, I also tipped it up, and the entire chicken dinner slid into the bottom of the oven.

What the?

Humiliated, I scooped the mess up with the biggest spoon I could find, and sloshed it back into the pan. Amazingly, Brian still ate it. This wasn’t my first cooking experience. I had been cooking and baking since I was 8 years old! Another time, I made the world’s worst poppycock using my mom’s recipe at my in-laws’ house. Even my ancestors were embarrassed at that one. I made my most favorite rice pudding twice, and ruined it both times for friends and family. One had scrambled eggs speckled throughout the pudding, and the other had little bits of crunchy rice. A few years ago, I had a very full house for Thanksgiving and made the wrong stuffing—it was a soggy pan of nastiness. Whoops.

SIGH.

On Sunday—this PAST SUNDAY—I made a dessert and practically ruined the thing. What should have been a beautiful cake with three distinct layers was more like a deconstructed layered cake with notes of lava cake. Tasted good—looked horrible.

I have been cooking for 40 years!

40!!!!!

Wouldn’t it have clicked by now??

Still, I love cooking. It’s so fun. Some things turn out amazingly, and some things make a great story. The point is, nothing just clicked for me. Truthfully, I don’t think that’s a real thing.

Maybe things don’t just click for you, either. No worries. We are probably kindred spirits. In the absence of any clicking, I just get up everyday and keep trying. And I practice having a good sense of humor. It helps when you can laugh, especially at yourself.

I know it’s not glamorous, but it works for me.

It could work for you, too.