I never could play jax well. I would practice and practice and sometimes get all the jax picked up, but most times my jax sessions would end tearfully with extreme frustration, and with the jax and the ball being thrown across the room. It didn't help that my older brother could play better than me always getting the entire pile picked up.
Then there was the time in my early teens - that horrible time when you are changing from kid to adolescent. Hair was a nightmare. I'd grown up with pixie cuts and perms - my hair trimmed, washed and curled by mom. But now I was responsible for the care and maintenance of my own coiffure. I again encountered that familiar frustration with my efforts to get my hair under control. There's a bathroom wall on Pelham Dr. in Oklahoma City that I'd wager still has the scars from the numerous stabbings it got from my rat-tail comb. My attempts at perfection inevitably ended in tears and rage. I had to take it out on something. I simply couldn't understand why I could only get it right sometimes and not all the time.
In high school that frustration reappeared with my attempts to master the guitar. This was the era of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul & Mary - the coffee house era. I sang, had sung all my life, and had dreams of becoming the next Baez. I could strum and sorta pick the guitar, but I could never master specific picking patterns. I'd practice and practice - sometimes getting it right, but I couldn't make it stick. No consistency. Fortunately, no guitars were broken, but strings were broken and music thrown across the room. Why sometimes, not all the time?
I'm currently experiencing that familiar inconsistency and along with it that familiar frustration with my card playing. I've been playing for over a year and a half, and if I am to use the bankroll as a measuring rod, I am dismal. I feel that I am a much better player than the dollars would indicate, but I simply haven't been able to break through the ceiling and really soar. I have bursts of brilliance - those sessions where everything clicks 100% and I outplay the table - good cards or not. But, then I sit down for the next session, and I wonder if I really know how to play this game at all. Everything falls apart.
Today was a day where everything fell apart. Actually, it started before today, but it escalated today. I'm not going to go into the details, but, at the end of it, I'm revisiting for the umpteenth time the notion of whether I should give this up. You see, it's not good enough for me to do this as a fun little hobby. I said a while back that I aim to be the best I'm able - but I don't just want to be good at it. I want to be great. But after a year and a half, I have yet to make it past 3 figures in the bankroll. Not a very good indicator for greatness, if you ask me.
Oh, my goodness. This was sounding all too familiar. I just went to my archives of a year ago. Criminy. I don't know whether to laugh or...
Right now I'm at a loss as to what the solution to this problem is. I'm going to have to do some serious evaluation again. Sometimes I wish I could channel a pro or one of my expert blogging brethren to guide me through these murky waters. Actually, my blogging brethren do guide me - daily. I just wish I could get it to stick.
