Another follow up - Bye-bye bridge

I have bowed out of bridge lessons.  Each lesson was 2 1/2 hours long, twice a week.  There was a LOT of information during each lesson, what the instructor called "a firehose of information", very dense and using an argot specific to the game.  Because I had to miss a few sessions, I felt I was falling further and further behind, not understanding the principles, not really learning.  I began to feel tense and uneasy about it, not looking forward to the sessions, and foreseeing that I would have to miss even more of them in the coming weeks.  So I gave my notice to the instructor, who was, predictably, very understanding.

I learned that new rookie lessons will begin in January, so I figure between now and then I can study the information I already have, as well as playing practice games on a couple of the apps and websites I've found.  Then, when I start again, I won't be starting from scratch and might be able to keep up and learn, even if I still have to miss some sessions.  

It was such a relief to let it go.  Why on earth keep doing something I'm feeling anxious about when there is a path to better understanding in the future?

However, when I reflected this experience, I realized that I have never really learned to knuckle down, to study in a deep, committed way.  I breezed through high school with little effort, relying on native intelligence and casually gathered knowledge to get by.  I suppose if I had applied myself I could have had a sterling GPA, but that wasn't really important to me.  And when I was in college, all I wanted to do was theater and dance, so I would get As in those classes and a C in whatever required class I was taking to round out my education.  I left college after 2 years to move to Hollywood to pursue an acting career and never earned a degree.

I enjoy my relaxed, loosey-goosey, impulsive, free spirited approach to life.  There has never been a time I have regretted not having a college degree.  But I do see that, in this one arena of trying to learn something new that is challenging and requires a fair bit of effort, I don't have much strength.  I would read the pages handed out at each bridge class and my eyes would start to close and my attention wander because I just wasn't getting it.

It's way too late in life for me to be hard on myself about this.  Mostly I'm just noticing something about how I move through life and reflecting on how I feel about it.  Actually, I feel all right.  But I do want to learn bridge, so I'm going to keep at the practicing, get myself some foundation so as to be ready for the next round of classes.  And then I'll either catch on or I won't.  And, loose goose that I am, I'm sure I'll manage to be all right about that, too.