Home Improvement vs. Self Improvement

This last week or so, I've been angry at a lot of things--Jenny McCarthy, the entire profession of orthopedic medicine, people who appoint themselves the doyenne of an entire home decor trend, picky eaters, blouses without sleeves in stores in January, shoppers who fill out checkbook ledgers in express lanes.

The fact that this much LPC and LMC (little plastic crap and little metal crap) came off
just ONE window is pretty irritating. 

You could say the little stuff is getting me down and though there is a lot of that, sometimes to the point I feel like I'm being pecked to death by chickens, it's also a lot of larger, more abstract things I'm wrestling with that are quite frankly pissing me off. And unfortunately they are all about my own annoying self.

It seems like home bloggers don't write about anger much, which has always surprised me. It seems like we have plenty to be mad about sometimes.

Like this plumbing leak that destroyed my entire bedroom wall:

Or the time I cussed an entire clump of maiden grass out of my border. My tools were an axe and fury:

Next time I'm using a flame thrower. 

But I'm beginning to realize (I'm a bit hard-headed, I know) that this is the stuff that actually happens while we're writing to-do lists and thinking it's gonna be a breeze. That "progress is progress" mantra from my New Year's goals is part of dealing with that. Realizing that no matter what happens, it's only going to get done one thing at a time anyway, even if that includes leaky pipes and stubborn weeds.

So you'd think with that attitude adjustment I'd be good to go, right?

Yes. And no.

I'm chugging along on my bedroom renovation just like I talked about, and I'll have some posts about it soon. But I'm discovering the "progress is progress" concept is a hell of a lot easier to apply to painting woodwork and wiring lighting than my other work in progress, which is me. For that, sometimes angry is all I've got.

1. I don't want help. Yes, I do. No, I don't.

I want to be self-reliant. While I am not irrational enough to think that I'm going to be able to do every single thing this house needs all by myself, I think I've got enough smarts, ability to work hard and willingness to attempt new challenges to do a lot of it. Sometimes it's not even that, but the fact that most of the time it's only me, and it's the only way it's going to get done.

But I only have so much time. I am only one person. I only have so much physical strength. And sometimes, things just go to hell well beyond my control to stay ahead of the problem. All of these facts tick me completely off.

In the almost three years I've lived here I have had help from my mom, my dad, my sister, my sons, an electrician, a plumber, and a handy man.

No one should ever feel bad about Dad help. It's one of the best kinds. 

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for all the work from others which has made my house my home. And yet I get angry at myself for needing it. I know it doesn't make any sense; I think I'd feel less conflicted about it if I were in a relationship, as in, "we-the-couple" welcomed help from family and friends or hired it done, rather than "me" being a woman on her own who needed help, who couldn't do it on her own. It's that hair-splitting gender difference that makes me feel inadequate. Even when it's help from people who love me and would do it anyway. What's the difference between having assistance and being rescued? I don't know, and I worry about that part.

One of my favorite bloggers, Kit over at DIY Diva, recently wrote a post about this issue, only she did it much better and it included tequila and a raccoon in a cage; you can read it here. She said, "...sometimes I am only strong by default, not by choice. And it's not in my nature to accept that. Some day I might invite someone along on this adventure of mine, but not until I'm sure that I can walk the path on my own." This. So much this. Which leads me to:

2. I am single again, which is a good thing. Unless I'm mad about it, which I frequently am.

Because my personal life isn't really the focus of this blog, it didn't get mentioned that Mr. Man and I stopped seeing each other in August. It was no one's fault; he's a great person, and we're still friends. But after having that two and a half year relationship come to an end, followed by what can only be described as some.....communication weirdness I guess... with a guy I've liked for a really long time, I decided it was time to take a big long vacation from dating. I'm giving myself a year off.

Love me, love my chickens.

Partly because of number one, part two is necessary. I need to be not only competent but comfortable on my own, and honestly, I might be that way a lot longer than a year. Most of the time, I think I am. Comfortable, that is. But I'm also ambivalent. I run all the way from a slightly (and only slightly) more mature version of Boys Are Stupid, to having angst-y episodes about whether I can ever meet anyone when the only places I go are the grocery store and the hardware store. Then I realize I'm worrying about this during my supposed year off, and I get mad at Boys and myself all over again. So, the short version of all this is: boys stupid, me stupid, me angry that I'm stupid.

3. Getting older is also stupid.

I took up running last year as a way to bond with my sister, lose weight, and to, ironically enough, manage my anger. Running is meditative, cathartic, an excellent way to blow off steam. But I injured my hip, and I've been laid up recovering for a couple of months. After multiple appointments with an orthopedic surgeon and an MRI, what they can tell me is this: they don't know what happened, and they can't find anything wrong.

It was anti-climatic. And infuriating. The good news is they don't see anything wrong and I've got the go ahead to start running again. But the bad news is it's all uphill from here, as they say, to regain the level of fitness I lost, and to re-lose the weight I re-gained.

It's at this point I try to inject a little perspective. It's easy to give the sleeveless blouses and children who turn up their noses at chicken side-eye and move on. At the other end, none of my anger problems are real problems in the grand scheme of what the universe can dish out, just.....dissatisfaction aimed in an uncomfortable direction--at myself.

So while I think I've found the right philosophy for my home-improvement projects, I'm still finding what works for my self-improvement projects. "Progress is progress" isn't cutting it just yet, though maybe I'll come around to it.

In the meantime, I'll just shake my fist in its general direction.