I contracted a rare case of Premature-Middle-School-Senioritis at the beginning of eighth grade.

I was the kid who played an original drum solo in front of 150 people back in fourth grade, but I quit. By the first week of eighth grade, I had had enough. I simply stopped drumming. The absence of responsibility to practice after my previous eight years of rocking was euphoric, but only at first.

I went through all of that year and most of the next without thinking much about my lonely drum kit,  untouched since I placed my sticks on top of the floor tom some year and a half prior.

By January of ninth grade I had accepted the fact that my years of soloing and insistent paradiddling were behind me, but my dad didn’t want his little drummer boy to continue down his path of professional time wasting.

My father sat me down and gave me a poignant lecture.

“Do you remember the thing I told you about 10,000 hours?”

I didn’t.

10,000 hours is the time, according to Malcolm Gladwell, that it takes to master a skill. I had a faint recollection of when my dad initially told me about the concept, but it was in the distant past. He reminded me of how much time I had already put in, around seventeen hundred hours give or take, and how he knew I was talented. At the time I didn’t think much of it.

I still didn’t want to drum, but, like “The Tell-Tale Heart”, I could hear the distant deceased beats of a bass drum coming from the floor below. I was painfully aware of the orphaned four piece set collecting dust downstairs.

Avoiding going past the first few steps into the basement had become natural, but my subconscious fear of facing my drumset was about to rear its head.

“Em, laundry’ll be done in five. Dad’s at work. I’m leaving...love you!”

Five minutes until I would face the most irrational fear ever: the fear of four mahogany and parchment cylinders.

My feet were heavy as I left the bottom step, head hung. I lifted my eyes. It was ugly. My once beautiful drum kit had suffered  since I had left it years before. Dust covered the cymbals. The toms tilted like they had hanged themselves by their stiff metal necks. The sticks laid lifeless; still fixed to the floor tom.

The next day I forced myself back down, and I played.

Correction: I embarrassed myself whilst alone in my basement. I tried to play one of my favorite Bonham beats, and instantly I was slapped across the face with all five rings on the backhand of reality.

I lost it, every hour spent practicing. My weary muscles struggled to remember the movements I had perfected years prior.

The 10,000 hours lecture crept back into my head. I could vividly remember the dexterity that I had developed before I stopped, and I retained none of it.

That day was over a year ago. The 10,000 hours have become a way to measure my return to drumming proficiency. I’m now only at around 550, but at least I’m practicing consistently using a healthy kit.

The time between the days of defeat and when I returned to confidence have been flushed from my system. Now, if I ever feel frustrated to the point of quitting, I take a step back and remember the initial pain. I refuse to forget how crippling it felt to realize that I had lost my progress, and I won’t let another poor decision stifle my future success.