I love games. Board games, card games, charades,
you name it. I love games because my family loves games. I love them because
they bring back memories of playing with my mom and my sister on snow days.
We played games all the time as kids. We had to
follow the rules too. My mom never let us skip ahead to slide down the chutes, no
matter how close we landed. She didn’t steer us away from the Old Maid card. She
definitely didn’t let me return to the game after I incorrectly suggested it
was Miss Scarlet with the candlestick in the conservatory. As a child, it was
rough; but as an adult, I couldn’t be more thankful. I learned from an early
age that winning was much more satisfying when I won “fair and square.” I
pursued fully understanding each game and its rules because I knew there wouldn’t
be an easy way out. Strategy was my best friend.
While this method definitely contributed to my
competitive nature, it also contributed to cultivating my problem solving
skills, my determination, and my ability to look five steps ahead. There’s a
joke in my family that when we play Monopoly with my Uncle Stephen, he goes
after “the women and children first.” This isn’t necessarily true, but the
point is, there was never any grace given if you were new or inexperienced. We
laugh and joke and it was definitely rough when we went bankrupt, but I’m so
thankful now.
There aren’t any shortcuts in life. Once in a
while you may catch a break and be able to slide down life’s chutes instead of
climbing its ladders, but that’s the exception, not the rule. As discouraging
as it was to mortgage my last property, pick the Old Maid, or watch my mom
reach the Candy Castle first, those moments taught me some valuable life
lessons. I learned how to wait my turn, how to function on a team and how to
make tough choices. I persevered, strategized, and practiced being a good sport.
More importantly, I learned all of these valuable life lessons while building tight
bonds with my family. The trust I have in my sister was undeniably strengthened
through years of working together in order to build our five card sequence, get
the most points in Pictionary or more importantly, beat our parents. Friends
still hesitate to play Taboo with us because of our mind-reading abilities.
I’m so grateful that in the moments where my mom
could have let me win (or at the very least let me bypass Lord Licorice), she didn’t.
She could have relieved me of temporary frustration or sadness but in doing so,
she would have robbed me of the opportunity to feel the accomplishment of
successfully and honorably achieving checkmate. I learned to be a good sport
and found new determination to work harder next time.
I learned to accept that sometimes life hands you
a Queen of Spades, but with a lot of strategy and a little luck, you might just
shoot the moon.
