Wanting To Want To

After about seven years (I've lost count at this point) we are finally completing TWO rooms in the gorilla/monstrosity building project--the French Door Room and our second bathroom. Woohoo! Today Carl and Dave checked off things on the punch list (look at me spouting all the lingo): fit wood blinds, repair pocket door and install its hardware, mount hardware on bathroom vanity, and on and on. For the first time in ten years we finally have a second toilet, a second shower (only cold water, though, until we purchase a second hot water heater) and a second bathroom sink and vanity--all in the nick of time given the fact that four females live in this house.

A while back Carl made the offhanded comment that I hadn't really helped much with the building project. Never mind that I handled the bookkeeping for our home and business, cooked, cleaned, potty-trained two children (and every other mundane mommy mission) and almost-but-not-quite acted as single mom while he and his buddy played Tim-the-Tool-Man-Taylor with power tools and big boy toys and had something enormous to show for a day's work. Who said size doesn't matter? Do you sense a little pissiness here? Nah.

Here's the thing. I want to want to help. I want to want to paint the trim, hammer nails into studs, install hardware. I imagine myself as Hometime's Peggy JoJo Susanne Robin Miriam and Carl as Dean, each of us carrying our own end of a 12-foot piece of 2x4, joking around and reminding each other of the proper safety attire. But it just isn't in me.

Part of my disinterest is the mucky byproduct of arthritis--it's hard to get excited about painting when every third stroke of the paintbrush results in a zinging catch in my shoulder socket. And how can I expect to carry two-by-fours when balancing my own body on my crooked ankles has become a challenge all its own?

I originally intended to stop with this point, to use this post as an example of how chronic illness invades every element of its host's life. And though that is true, it isn't completely honest. Because, you see, while arthritis does influence every single decision I make on a daily basis-- from showering to shopping--it is not to be blamed for my every shortcoming. Honestly? I don't enjoy painting. Or hammering. Or mudding and taping. As much as I want to take part in this whole building-project-thing, to be able to say we did that together or I saved buku bucks by painting every piece of trim you see, I don't enjoy it. It doesn't come naturally. I spill the paint, it runs when I'm not looking, then dries in little drips.

Today I dressed in paint-covered cut-off shorts and a stained t-shirt so I could be available to paint whatever needed painted. By gawd, I was going to do my part. Carl gave Dave (thank God for Dave) a task then showed me the bathroom trim that needed painted, the woodwork that needed cleaned before it received its last coat of paint and the bathroom hardware that needed screwed into place. Just then I remembered that the library closed in 45 minutes and I needed a book before I leave to visit my sister tomorrow. Priorities, you know.

I returned an hour later, told Carl I'd be out to paint in a few minutes and went inside to open my laptop. Again--priorities. I needed to post some comments on my favorite blogs after slacking this past week. With that very important task completed I went back to the garage and saw that Carl still hadn't set up a painting station for me. What? Did he think I was going to do that myself?

"I'll paint if you'll set it all up for me," I said nicely.

He looked at me skeptically and said, "We're sanding this door and making a dusty mess right now. It's not a good time to paint."

Darn. "OK," I said and went back inside to watch Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics because I might want to take that up someday...after I'm miraculously healed or stem cell therapy is perfected. I had to give Carl credit for not bringing up the woodwork-cleaning project he mentioned earlier.

I just realized--we do make a great team. I pretend like I want to be Peggy JoJo Susanne Robin Miriam and Carl pretends like he believes me. I love that man.