Home Improvement

Started painting my office last night, and had some "help" from the kids. I love how Seth is standing on his tippy toes in the photo above. The place is more trashed than ever before, but hopefully it is the kind of mess necessary for creating what we want.

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HT and I realized some things over the last few days. Home improvement brings up tornadoes in each of us and when they collide, it is annoying, painful, ridiculous, juvenile...did I mention painful?

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The house I grew up in was broken. Everything was falling apart, literally and figuratively. If a knob broke, it stayed broken, for years. If a wall wasn't finished, we just walked around the dangling electrical cords, for years. Things never got fixed. Projects barely got started, let alone finished.

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The house HT grew up in was not broken. His Dad can fix anything, and did, but HT never learned how. He isn't handy. There I said it.* This is something he struggles with. Home repairs frustrate him to no end. He doesn't have the right tools. He somehow feels less of a man, because he doesn't know how to get a rusted on bolt off the bathroom sink so he can replace the faucet, etc.

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Not just a pretty face, Todd daily saves patients lives, by finding mistakes their friendly doctors make while they are in the hospital. No matter his own med error rate is infinitesimal(most pharmacist's med error rates are not infinitesimal). No matter he is a wonderful husband and loving father and all around good person. He can't easily hang a set of shelves. The shame.

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So we do this little dance. Consider humming a waltz as you read this next part:

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-I see a needed repair, and become convinced the whole house is going to cave in. It might happen. It could all fall apart.

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-He feels defeated just thinking about the project.

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-I feel I can't hire someone to fix it because I don't get a pay check and even though he's always said it's our money, and I truly believe he believes this, I still feel like I have to run everything by him, and also risk insulting his manhood in the process.

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-When I run it by him, as predicted, he feels "less than," and worried about money.

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-He swears it isn't about the money.

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-I don't believe him.

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-He says he's sick of contractors ripping us off, because of our lack of knowledge on home repairs.

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-I fear it has to get to the point of a grown up tantrum for him to hear me when it comes to home repairs. Having a tantrum feels asinine to me, but I'm obviously not above it.

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-If he has a tantrum while attempting said repairs, I can't tolerate it. It's asinine.

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Then there's that pesky little feminist whispering in my ear, "He has no more ability than you do in this area, but you always expect him to be the one in there struggling with the wrong wrench and god damn rusted on bolts."

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11 years married and we're finally getting to the bottom of this, the messy task of acknowledging our irrational fears. Like the paint job in progress, it's the kind of mess necessary for creating what we want.

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My irrational fear is of catastrophe.

His irrational fear is of not measuring up.

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But we've built this house on a strong foundation. Nothing is going to collapse. He is a man of integrity and honor with nothing to be ashamed of.

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Every problem boils down to fear.

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Many problems.

One solution.

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Love.

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*Todd gave me permission to write about this here.