Once, I was a pianist.  Classical music.  I had excellent teachers who expected perfection.  I practiced one hour each day every day from the third grade to the twelfth.  That's a lot of hours.  I had musical talent, but it was mostly hard work forcing my fingers to do what was required.  Now when I turn on the classical radio station, I hear and remember the music I once played.

And then I got married, left home and left hundreds and hundreds of sheets of classical music behind me.  There was no piano where I moved with Ken.  Except at the church.  So I became a hymn pianist--playing for the Pensacola choir and church,  and through the years, my fingers lost the ability to do the classical things they had been trained to do.  

That is the perfect description of a "Use it or lose it" event.  It could not be helped.  I could not maintain something I couldn't continue to practice daily.  And as time passed, I did not miss the grueling hours of practice.  And as time passed, I was content to listen to others play the pieces I had once perfected.

Did I want to be a concert pianist?  Absolutely not.  Every girl I knew in the forties and fifties learned to play the piano.  I just stuck with it.  Every home had piano in the living room.  We played because we were supposed to play.  Different eras have different expectations.  

My parents weren't financially heeled.  I have no idea where the money came from to give me piano lessons.  I have no idea where the money came from to buy a piano. 

Everything we learn to do becomes a part of who we are.  I very seldom sit down and play my piano anymore.  But I can still do it.  I can still read the music score and play the correct notes.  And by the grace of God, I don't have arthritis in my fingers.  They still do what they were trained to do.