The Beatles sang "When I was younger, so much younger than today/ I never needed anybody's help in any way/ but now those days have gone and I'm not so self-assured/ Now I find I've changed my mind, I've opened up the doors...Help! I need somebody"These lyrics do not apply to me. As I get older, I am become more and more independent. If it's out of a sense of self-assurance or sheer necessity, who's to say? But my need for 'somebody' is decreasing while my knack for being my own problem-solver is increasing.
This morning as I was putting away laundry, my problematic closet door came off it's track and the wheel came off. Then the other door came off it's track. If you're good at math, that is 100% of my closet doors not on their track. And I have to admit my first instinct was to lay down on my bedroom floor and cry. Which I did. I cried because my closet was broken. I cried because I couldn't fix it. I cried because I didn't have 'someone' around who could. I cried because I was tired. I cried because in that moment I felt like I wanted someone to help me and I shouldn't want someone to help me because I'm an 'independent woman who don't need no man'. Then I put on my big girl panties and assessed the situation.
It was frustrating. I had to get the wheels back on the first door and get it back on it's track, and in the process, the wheels came off the second door, and then the first door was actually in the way of getting it back on the track. Trying to hold the door up on my own was very tricky, it wasn't heavy, but it was awkward. There was the looming possibility that I would drop it and the mirror would break, cursing me with more bad luck than I need (as if I could tell the difference). I would have loved to have called for back-up. There were definitely some choice words uttered. But I fixed it.
The point is, there are instances where I don't need anybody. I can fix a closet door by myself. I can take my car in for it's scheduled maintenance on my own, and when a weird light comes on, I can look it up. I've gotten pretty brave when it comes to killing bugs and spiders. I may not need any one, but it might be nice to have someone around once in a while. It's nice to know I can do these things, but it'd be okay if there was someone else around to do them too.
I'm a damsel. I'm in distress. I can handle it....but I don't always want to...
