I am extremely proud of myself because I was able to repair something wrong with the kitchen sink all by myself. What's the big deal you say? Well, like some many women my age (I turn 50 this year, wowza) I absorbed the idea that fixing things was a man's job. I needed to call The Plumber if something happened to the faucet in the kitchen sink that made it spray sideways. But I was able to overcome my natural inclination to inertia and my learned helplessness in the fixit department. I unscrewed the part that wasn't working, went to the hardware store, got the correct part, and went home and put it on. Voila! It seems so simple, but believe me, inside I feel as if I have won a major victory over The Patriarchy. At each step of the process I had to work to overcome the little voice that said, "turn off your brain, you can't do this."
Oh, and I bought a pair of giant clippers and spent four hours cutting back branches and brush that needed to be trimmed around the building. Again, it wasn't hard, but I had been thinking I needed to call someone to do it for me, and I did it myself. I feel like The Little Engine that Could!
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3 comments:
Oh yeah!
My little girl is growing up!
It feels good don't it. I have a new bike lock, complicated. When me and the little one got to the swimming pool for her lessons I so wanted to leave the bikes unlocked because I could not figure it out, finally I just said, I must do this, I have to do this.
It is a good feeling when you realized you can do it.
Way to go.
Good for you! I have made a commitment to myself to push myself a little in this direction: overcoming learned passivity in the DIY area. Maybe I should sign up for one of a community ed class or something. Or just ask some of my handyman type buddies to work with me on a project so I can learn from them. I've always been so damn independent in some ways, and admired friends who do things themselves, but never thought much about why I thought of myself as incapable in those areas when I'm competent at so many other things. There's a Mary Daly essay somewhere about the invisible bars of the birdcage of patriarchy. I ought to dig it up.
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