The whole scene encapsulated the current state of people in America. Overweight, physically and mentally unwell, blaming others for their problems regardelss of whether they’re deserving or not, and sitting in a rut sobbing and trauma dumping instead of doing something productive.

Arlene

I don’t know how to help these people. And what if I did help her. She is one of millions of people who need help. I think about that everytime I see Arlene. Arlene lives on the bike path that runs through my town. She used to live at the train station, but she was evicted, so she moved to the adjacent bike path. She smokes meth and then walks around yelling and screaming into the ether. If you listen closely, sometimes she’s yelling about you. Everytime I ride past her I feel a slight sense of guilt that I’m not doing anything to help this woman who so clearly needs help. What, though? How can I help her? Give her money? Clothes? Blankets? Food? None of that will solve her problems, and I don’t have the skillset needed to fix a broken woman like Arlene.

Likewise, I’m not going to help you fix your car. Not because I don’t want to – well, that’s not true, I don’t want to – but because I’m not a mechanic. So instead, I focus on what I can do. I focus on my strengths. I think that’s all anyone can/should do. Focus on your strengths and become a little stronger everyday.

Doing What I Can

So, I walked away from the sobbing woman and went back home to finish my workbench. Now, every one of my tools has a place and every tool is in it. It’s such a thrill to have everything within arms reach and to have space to work. By organizing my stuff and by extension, my life, I will be better able to help others using my strengths. Or at least, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to to be able to tie today’s picture to the story about the only interesting thing that happened to me today.

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I know that sounds crazy. This whole thing is crazy. What’s even crazier is that I don’t even think the guy who collected all of those tools, fasteners, and whatever else is out there was who I really was. I don’t think that was me. I think I was just living a life that I fell into.

I’ve never had enough money to hire people to do things, so I’ve always done everything myself. I’ve always fixed my own cars, repaired my own plumbing, hell, I even replaced my own roof, and totally by myself, too.

When I want something, I seldom ever buy it new. I’ve never owned a new TV, and I think there are only two pieces of furniture in my house that I purchased new. I often build what I need or customize and modify second-hand things. It’s been my way of life since I was a kid, purely out of necessity. It wasn’t something I chose for myself. It’s only now, in middle age, that I’m realizing that I don’t want this way of life. I never did.

For Instance

I absolutely hate working on cars. I always have. The first time I worked on a car, I changed the brakes on my 1987 GMC Suburban. I hated every second of that experience. Despite that, I continued to work on my own cars for the next 25 years. My feelings about automotive repair never improved. I hate working on cars so much – and this is 100% serious – when I see someone working on a car outside of their house, I always think to myself, with the deepest sense of genuine gratitude, I’m so glad that’s not me. No joke, I really do that. Sometimes, I even say it out loud. That’s how much I hate working on cars.

Self-reliance is very en vogue right now. I think it’s a bit silly, to pretend we don’t live in a society with other people, but I also believe it’s important to be able to handle your shit without being a burden to the people around you. At the same time, though, I wonder what else I could have done with the three months I spent reroofing my house. I wonder what else I could have done with all of those countless hours, whole weekends, that I spent working on cars.

Last year, I spent weeks trying to repair a pipe that broke in the slab in my bathroom. It took me weeks to chisel out the concrete, find the right pipe, and track down tools and supplies. In the end, I ended up tagging in a plumber anyway. My only regret is that I didn’t start there. He was worth way more than the $500 he charged me. What could I have done with all of the time and money I spent trying, in vain, to fix the pipe myself?

This Old Dog Can Still Learn

I’ve learned my lesson. I will take as much time as necessary to rid my life of all of the superfluous distractions that prevent me from focusing 100% of my attention on the things that I am good at and that I enjoy. Life is too short, especially at my age, to waste a single second doing shit that I’m not good at and don’t enjoy.

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About a year and a half ago, our neighbors tried to run away from their problems by moving to Alabama. That’s four whole states farther away than Washington, but it still wasn’t far enough. We tried to warn them that you can’t run away from your problems by moving to another state, but they insisted that they weren’t running away from their problems. I don’t know if they actually believed that or if they were delusional, but I didn’t buy it. That’s the thing about an outside perspective: you can see things they can’t.

New Year, Same Old Routine

On January 1st every year, it seems like everyone thinks they’re leaving all of their problems in the previous year. That’s even sillier than moving across the country. You can at least move away from the source of some of your problems. Years don’t actually exist, so your problems don’t evaporate just because you tear a page off the calendar. Although I suppose some laws and the IRS are the exceptions.

I fall for the New Year’s trap every year myself. I always think as soon as that ball drops, everything will be jake, and I’ll have a clean slate. But you never get a clean slate, do you? There are always chunks of last year’s grizzle on it.

While I was looking forward to the new year this time around, I was so focused on work that I hardly gave the holidays any thought. They were just a distraction that I wanted to get past so I could get back to work. That was a new experience for me.

That New Year Smell Is Wearing Off

Now, a week into the new year, I’m feeling burned out, overwhelmed, unfocused and discouraged. I look around my house and see a never-ending list of incomplete projects, overdue repairs, and endless, endless cleaning. It would be easy enough to tackle one task at a time, but it never works out that way, does it? Just look at that bathroom fan I installed the other day, and that was relatively straightforward.

So, today, while looking around my garage, trying to decide what project to tackle to try to make a dent in the list, I had a thought. What if I just got rid of everything? I have a garage full of shit that I keep just in case I might need it someday. Take, for instance, my collection of fasteners. It’s nice to have for times when I’m trying to fix something, and I don’t want to take the time to run up to the store, but the fact is, I usually end up having to go to the store anyway because I don’t have the exact screw or nut on hand.

So what if I just got rid of it all? All of the unfinished projects, the unused tools, the tchotchkes, the knick-knacks, and everything else contributing to the clutter in both my mind and space. Is the space all of these things take up really worth the handful of times I ever use most of it? I’m not sure it is. So, I’m thinking about getting rid of all of it to wipe my slate clean and focus on only the things that are really important to me.

I’ll Never Catch That Damn Dragon

As I mentioned previously, we moved to Washington. Before we made the move, though, we moved in with Bonnie’s mom for three months to save some money. Everything we owned was in storage for those three months, so I had nothing to do. There were no projects to be finished, nothing to be repaired or maintained; there was nothing to do. I went to work, came home, and spent time with my wife and baby. I was fully present in my life. Those three months were the happiest I’ve ever been, and I’ve spent the past two decades trying to get back to that place, but there has been an endless pile of shit ever-growing up in front of me ever since.

So, the thought of getting rid of everything but what is essential to my daily life is intoxicatingly appealing, but I wonder, am I trying to run away from my problems yet again? Should I face my to-do list head-on and cross everything off of it? Or am I overthinking? In this situation, I’m sort of leaning toward erring on the side of incaution because the allure of having a clean slate is just so powerful. Besides, what am I out if getting rid of it all was a mistake, a trip to the hardware store?

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