Tags
dyscalculia, friends, friends are the rarest treasures, green flag behaviour, learning curve, Music, places where my anxiety is not a curse, practical skills, ran out of fucks, the world is beautiful, thinking out loud
A week or so ago, I helped a friend retrieve some books from an ex’s storage locker. These books had been in said locker for years and had created a weird little tie between Lady J and her ex that was starting to get really old. Lady J is not the practical sort. She’s clever, reads voraciously, speaks three languages and writes such beautiful things, but she is not practical – at least not in matters like this. It was inevitable that I should take this job on. I thank my mother for this part of me – she was always the sort who would look at a situation and say “what can I do to fix this?” This was especially important when I was younger, as there was just her income and very little extra for rainy days. So I have picked up this ability from her, where I can take the resources I have to hand and figure out a solution. Said solution is not always pretty, or elegant and often requires a little hard work, but it gets done.
First Lady J wanted to rent a truck. But I have an SUV. With the seats down, one can fit quite a bit of stuff in it. I know this, we’ve taken the thing camping on more than one occasion and purchased furniture which we brought home in it. Let’s save some money, yeah? (It’s not like we live in a world where things are cheap!) Initially I was going to request the help of my husband, but then I decided it wasn’t really necessary for him to take time off work for this – Lady J and I could wrangle a dolly, a recalcitrant ex and her sister and get it done in no time.
I even made a playlist for it. She’d been catastrophizing about it all week leading up to it so I put some music together for some bolstering vibes. The fact that I did this was apparently something no one had ever done for her before. I was glad to share the tradition – and it helped move things along. (Title song below :P) I find making a playlist for a task can help motivate me – especially for things like household chores, so why not this?
So I arrived at the old apartment in jeans and plaid, (which lady J pointed out to her sister as “dressed for the part” since neither of them own a plaid shirt in any form – and they call themselves Canadian!) and a hat to keep my ridiculous hair from getting in the way. Part of my practical self it would seem, is to be prepared to work! The other two were in very pretty tops; one a cashmere turtleneck and the other a pearl-buttoned sweater with puff sleeves that I could never pull off. But I was right – it only took three trips between the ex’s place and the storage locker she had rented, and it went relatively smoothly. In spite of one of the ex’s neighbours coming out to berate us for whatever she could think of, while filming us with her phone. I think she had decided that because said ex was brown, he was Up to Something Nefarious. I just turned to Lady J’s sister and said – and this is not something I’ve ever managed to say before: “I’m not giving this woman my energy. If she’s that mad about it let her call the cops. What are they going to do?” She would have little to work with as it was 3pm on a Saturday afternoon.
To her credit, Lady J’s sister is adept at handling the damaged. She managed the crazy lady and the ex with grace and we got the whole thing done and dusted rather quickly. Then we went and drank well-earned mojitos and ate ahi tuna “nachos” from Ferris.
It’s nice to be helpful to your friends and it’s also nice to discover something about yourself. I’ve come a long way in the last few years, in spite of a few bumps along the way. Past me would not have removed myself from that lady’s crazy and possibly made it worse. Past me would also have catastrophized a little – but now I think that my anxiety has made me better able to plan for contingencies. My therapist was right, I’ve turned it into a ‘superpower’. Not that the anxiety is gone, I’ve just started to make it work for me – just like I’ve made routines and tricks to work around my dyscalculia. Though I did that without knowing I was doing it – I just thought I was shit at math and I used strategies and skills from other parts of my brain to make things work. That’s part of life isn’t it? Learning about yourself and how you fit – or don’t fit into the world.
I’ve also realized that it’s ok to not fit. I like to joke that I’ve fun out of fucks to give – and while that’s true, it’s that I am much less concerned about what other people think of me. I haven’t the energy to spend on what people who mean nothing to me think of me. That’s the important bit. The people who matter, love you for who you are – and isn’t that beautiful?