Necessity

I am amazed by how much I have learned, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. Because there was no one there to do it for me.

I remember one time, shortly after I moved here, I had to drive to Tacoma to take some tests for a job for which I applied. And in order to get to Tacoma -- at least the short way -- I had to drive over the Narrows Bridge. Which has a toll booth. This was before I had invested in my good-to-go pass that now sits nicely beneath my rearview mirror and just deducts from an account whenever I cross the bridge (which is rare). So at that time, I had to stop and pay the toll the old fashioned way. It was probably October, so it was cold. And rainy (it is Washington State, after all...). And my window doesn't roll all the way down. And even as far as it does go, it goes very slowly. So I started way back to press the "power" button for my window to lower it so I could pay the toll and not hold up traffic and be that person. And so as I drove with my window lowering, the wind and the rain and the cold came in. And I was already nervous. Tacoma is a big city, and I'd never been there on my own before. And I started crying there to myself, thinking, "I shouldn't have to go through these things alone!" But, I got over it. And I paid the toll. And I found the library headquarters. And I passed all the tests (including the Spanish one, by the by...), and I made it safely home.

And maybe I shouldn't have had to go on my own. Maybe (no, definitely), it would have been nice to not be alone on that journey. But it was either go alone, or don't go at all. And so I went.

The same is true of going to Tuscaloosa.

And so I have found that, sometimes, out of necessity, we do have to go alone. And in some way, we grow from that. We become stronger because of it.

Here are some things I have learned out of necessity:

• How to change a toilet seat (remember Julie?).
• Where to put coolant in my car.
• How to replace a heating element in the oven (yeah, this was a fun exercise tonight...)
• How to use epoxy to replace a torn out sideview mirror.
• Never to let the oil tank for the heater get empty.

I'm sure there are more. Those are a few. It would be easier if I were married, or my dad was nearby. I could pass the job on to someone else. But I guess I wouldn't really learn that way, and there's nothing wrong with learning more. (And it's always nice that I can call my dad and have him talk us through the steps and tell us what we need to make sure we're doing to be safe...).

Of course, when I'm in the middle of a frustrating task, I usually spout off (like I did to my dad tonight over the phone) that this stuff is "man's work" and I shouldn't have to be doing it ;). He just laughs at me.

Yep... Sometimes we learn more out of necessity than we ever actually wanted to learn. But it's probably good for us :).