The joy of independence

My 75-year-old mother has come to the realization that she shouldn’t do everything for herself (like being up on a tall ladder washing her house). Being that my siblings and I live hundreds of miles away, the fact that she has acknowledged the need for occasional assistance is of great comfort to us.

I understand my mother’s desire to be independent, though, because I am the same way. Like my mother, I have lived alone for many years; until just the past few years, I rarely asked for help with anything, even though I am barely 4’6”and am not physically able to move, carry or reach a lot of things by myself.

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I refused to ask for help—I was Miss Independence. I did things by myself that I shouldn’t have done—things that my back aches just thinking about now. I remember buying my first microwave (back when they were new technology and half the size of my tiny kitchen). I moved that box (which was much larger than the microwave due to the packaging) from the car, up the stairs, into and through my apartment, unpacked it, and then hefted it up onto the kitchen counter. That could have been accomplished in 5 minutes if I'd asked for help; but it took me forever to go one painstaking inch at a time because the box was not only very heavy but way beyond the reach of my tiny arms to carry.

This past Monday—Labor Day, appropriately—Miss Independence re-emerged. I decided it was time that I learn to paint—walls. I have two close friends who live nearby and are very good at interior painting; one of them, in fact, painted my master bath for me. But I wanted to see if I could do this by myself. Armed with an 8-foot ladder for my 9-foot ceilings, I began in a small alcove that leads to the bathroom. I did all the taping first and then the edging and then the painting. It took me hours just to do the alcove, esp. since the paint roller pan only fit my ladder in a few locations, so I couldn't move it to the level where I was painting and had to reach through the ladder to load my roller/brush. When I finally descended the ladder for the last of what felt like hundreds of times that day, my feet ached horribly, my neck was stiff and I was spent.

The difference between Miss Independence at 25 and at 55 is that the 55-year-old can admit when she’s beat. I’m going to ask my friends for their help to paint the rest of the bedroom. Did I fail? Oh no. The joy inside me when I lay in bed Monday night looking at the newly-painted alcove was so full-to-bursting that it far overcomes any feeling of failure. Miss Independence just wanted to see if she could do it—and she did. The fact that she didn’t do it all by herself is of no importance. The fact that she tried when she was afraid to try (and fail) is huge.