Last night, out of nowhere, our garbage disposal went on the fritz. Both of them (yes, we have two separate sinks and disposals--installed by the previous owners).
Dave went straight into "fix-it" mode. He took out all of the drawers to get access to the smaller sink's pipes. He emptied the cabinet under the sink to get access to the pipes under the main sink. I just stood there, saying, "Anything I can do?"
There wasn't.
Because I am not one of those people who can do anything. I want to be one of those people. I once fancied myself one of those people. But all it took to convince me otherwise was a little foray into (making an attempt at) changing out a dated bathroom faucet for a newer, more updated one.
It seemed like a great idea at the time. Dave was going to Yosemite with his students for five days, and I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be a great surprise if he came back and the ugly brass-colored faucets in our master bathroom were replaced by sleek-looking brushed nickel faucets?"
Along with that thought should have been me also thinking, "Yes! He would love that! I'll call a plumber to do the job since I have absolutely zero experience in anything even remotely related to plumbing." But no. That sensible thought did not occur in my head. No, instead, I convinced myself that I was an intelligent person capable of following installation instructions, which surely would come with the new faucets.
Those instructions did, indeed, come with the faucets. I was not, as it turns out, capable of following them.
I won't go into excruciating detail, but suffice it to say that there is particular rudimentary "which pipe goes where" knowledge as well as vocabulary when one is installing faucets, and I was not in possession of any of it. There are also (supposedly) helpful diagrams. Again, if you're not familiar with the schematics of that kind of graphic, it's all just tiny little pictures of unidentifiable parts that to me, looked all the same.
I lasted all of about forty-five minutes under our bathroom sink before I called "mercy," and a professional. He did both sinks in about an hour.
Plumbing is just one of the many skills I do not possess. I can mow the lawn, but I cannot edge it. Because weed-whackers are terrifying. If anything at all goes wrong with the refrigerator, I'm out. Same with the oven (or any major appliance). I once, and I'm not kidding here, called the local appliance store because our dishwasher wouldn't work. They sent out Ralph, who I'm sure thought I was a complete idiot when it turned out I simply had mistakenly pressed the "delay cycle" button. He pressed the button again and voila, the dishwasher was fixed.
And the list of things I cannot do goes on... and on...
My husband, on the other hand, has mad skills, and diverse mad skills! He can replace door hardware, seal a leak in the hot tub, do the electrical work to install fans outdoors, build furniture, change the oil in ALL of our cars, add RAM to his computer, replace a broken gate and a broken tail light, construct a wheelchair ramp for his parents' house, make a perfect cappuccino, explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity and perfectly cook a steak.
I can do exactly none of those. I can make a good cappuccino. But that's it (and if I"m being honest the only reason I can do that is because Dave taught me). I do have skills, but mine are less useful. I can load the dishwasher to maximum capacity (you can laugh, but I can fit twice as many dishes in the dishwasher than anyone else in my family--it's my super power). I learn languages easily. I make truly great chocolate chip cookies. These are entirely different kinds of skills than Dave has., though. His are wide-ranging, useful skills. Mine are... what's the word I'm searching for... extraneous? superfluous? I mean really, life's going to be just fine without my skills--maybe a little annoying at how often the dishwasher would have to be run. Life's would be, first of all, ridiculously expensive without Dave's skills, but also it would be a revolving door of repair people--the house would constantly be in a state of falling apart.
I have great appreciation for people who are fearless in attempting tasks with which they have no prior experience but are fairly certain they will at least mildly succeed at. (One of my other super powers is grammar/punctuation, so in case you noticed that last sentence, please let me reassure you that ending a sentence with a preposition is now considered acceptable)
While I am not fearless, I am pretty game to try new things. The difference with me is that rarely am I even remotely thinking that I will succeed on a first try. First tries are training ground for me. But I don't care. I'm still willing to make the initial attempt. So I guess that counts for something.
I'm trying, in my head, to connect the dots with all this, and what I'm seeing is the common thread of optimism. People like Dave give things a go because they are confident that they can master something; they are willing to put in the time, the work, the sweat-- they can visualize mastering a skill and can devise a path to get them there. People like me, though we don't have headline-worthy success rates (sometimes ever) with our talents, are still willing to give things a go because we can visualize improvement (any improvement!) at some point down the line. It's sort of a glass starting half full and filling up for Dave and an empty glass slowly filling up for me.
I imagine my metaphorical glass to slowly fill up with a nice Robert Strong Chalk Hill chardonnay. And when I'm done I am positive I can fit that glass into the top rack of what seems like an already-filled dishwasher.
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