In Mourning

Well, that is a pretty dreadful title, isn't it?  If there is one thing you can absolutely count on, its the many opportunities we will have in this life to mourn.  There are many different things to mourn.  The most obvious is loved ones.  I, however, am mourning over the person I used to be, or rather the things I used to be able to do.  Now, I've got to be careful and not succumb to the fate of Lot's wife by looking back and being turned into a pillar of salt.  At least I'm not mourning the good 'ole days of wickedness.  

Here is what I've had to leave behind.  

Part of my identity for many years was being a tom boy while still being a girl.  I spent most of my childhood on construction sites with my Dad.  I love to see something come out of nothing.  I love the smell of wood.  There are a couple of houses being built in the neighborhood and when the pile of wood gets delivered it is the most inciting beautiful smell ever and it fills me with a sense of peace.  If I were to psycho analyze this I would say that the association with the smell is because I used my parents working on houses together as everything being right.  They were working together and so there was no threat of our family being broken apart.  It was a marker that I used to comfort myself amongst the turmoil my parents relationship was constantly in.  That was definitely a time in my life that I spent in mourning.  

All that time hanging out on job sites with my dad and getting to do little token jobs gave me a love and appreciation for physical labor and building things.  I love to put together furniture.  I love to work outside.  I love to use my hands.  I once tore apart our guest bathroom while my husband was out of town and redid the entire thing -including electrical and plumbing.  I did have to call and ask a bit of advice from my dad on what to do about a huge hole left in my wall from moving the electrical.  I love to cut and sand and paint.  I painted every room in our last house.  I did the backyard almost completely by myself and many many home improvement projects. 

My dad made sure I knew how to do everything so that I didn't have to rely on a boy to do it for me.  He was very in to self reliance.  I remember one time he had me changing the oil in my car.  I came out wearing my favorite shirt and I had rings on my fingers.  He said that I had to crawl under the car so I should change and take my rings off.  Well, I like being a girl while doing boy things and I'm stubborn and like to prove people wrong.  So I climbed under the car, changed my oil and didn't get any on my shirt or my rings.  Boom!  He also insisted that I be able to put air in my tires.  That one, I wasn't keen about ever learning to do.  I had heard too many horror stories of people vaporizing their skin off with the pressure from a blown tire.  As we were driving to the gas station I was telling him that it was a skill that I would never need as long as men were on the earth.  He disagreed so I probably said something like, "fine!"  However, when I went to get out of the car to put air in them a boy came up and asked if I wanted help, "why yes I would."  Boom!  haha

Ok, so those little stories had nothing really to do with what I'm talking about except that I enjoy them and it gives a bit of insight into my character.  I was raised to be self sufficient.  To do what needs to be done.  To love to create.  To use my feminine wiles to get a man to do the things I don't want to do :0)

My body doesn't let me do most of those things anymore.  I have rooms in my house that have needed painting for 3-4 years now and I can't muster the strength to do it.  All the rolling required will kill my neck and I will pay dearly for it.  When we would move rooms around I would like to show off my freakish strength and move most things by myself.  Not anymore. When we moved the girls room, I had to wait on others to help me.  Simple tasks like mopping the floor and vacuuming are becoming increasingly more difficult for me to do.  

Not being able to do physical work with my body kills my spirit.  Asking for help, kills me.  I am in mourning for what I used to be able to do.   I have been trying not to just push through the pain and focus on healing my body, but I'm a pusher.  I need to knock it off though because my hip surgery was probably a direct result of pushing through.  

Well, I was done mourning and being helpless and wanted to push through.  I really wanted a compost bin and my favorite box store has them right now.  Normally I would have lifted the box onto the flatbed myself because I could, but this time I didn't mess with it and let someone help me.  I even let them load it into my car for me which I never do.  

I thought about waiting until my husband got home from work and asking him to build it but I knew that he doesn't have time.  He is also used to me just doing stuff like that.  I remembered that I had a 15 year old son that should be learning how to help with stuff like that but he was behind in school.  So, I looked at that box and looked at it some more and decided that I didn't care what the consequences were, I was building that compost bin!

It seriously felt so good.  I even had to use a mallet and pound the crap out of that thing to connect all the pieces together to make the cubes.  I did have to take a break because of all the bending and hammering, but I went back and got everything done but the legs.  I decided not to push my luck any further and let Nate and the kids finish it for FHE.  

I had a lot of thoughts while out in the sunshine building those cubes.  Work really is a balm to the soul.  It hungers for it.  I thought of the long line of carpenters I come from on my Dad's family line.  How good it felt to create.  I thought about the human body and marveled at it's abilities and how quickly they can be taken from you.  I'm in mourning for my limitations.  I thought about what limitations my body was going to have in 10-15 years from now when I wanted to be out on a mission.  I thought about my kids and what I hoped for them.  That they would learn the value of work.  That when they were selecting a mate they had an opportunity to see them in a service project to evaluate how they feel about work.  Are they the ones on the sidelines and always looking like they aren't doing anything or are they the ones in the middle of the action working diligently.  Are they being proactive or always waiting to be told to do something.  I also thought about my own children and how they would be evaluated in the same situation.  I mourned the thought of my Dad not living closer so he could teach my kids to be hard working and self sufficient like he taught me.  

We are living in a time where work isn't valued the way it should be and idleness is the goal.  My body may be hurting a bit from my labor, but I knew I would be going in for myofascial therapy this week and it would put me right again.  Despite the extra pain I incurred, my soul feels light.  Besides, look at my pretty compost bins.  Aren't they awesome?  I told you, I'm turning into a whackado hippie…..it will be perfect for all the cast offs from my juicer….yes, I still juice too….told you….whackado….and I've still got all those apples to can!