I’m Better at This Than I Thought

So are you

I surprise myself. My 4 am self has zero confidence in my abilities but in the light of day, I do all right.

Not only am I able to dress myself so I don’t look like a rodeo clown — not always a given at certain points in my life — but it turns out I take reasonably good care of myself and my partner (as he does of himself and me, btw). Together we keep a fairly liveable home and pay our bills in a timely manner so that the electricity is never in danger of being cut off — also not a given throughout my so-called adulthood. We pay our taxes. I know, impressive.

I got some highly questionable programming early on, however.

One of the more puzzling lines of code was an absolute certainty that any mistake, no matter how minor, would result in my complete and utter annihilation. I never would have, could have, verbalized it that way. It sounds ridiculous. But I remember having been asked to read something aloud once. No one explained that I was only to read the front of the card and then someone else would read the other side. I remember stumbling a couple of times over words, but the real horror came when I flipped the card and as I started reading someone else also started reading. I was mortified. My face burned and I wanted the floor to open and swallow me whole. I think I cried which, of course, made it all that much worse.

Overreaction much?

A friend’s nonchalance when I missed a turn once helped me get past that one (not that I’m completely over it or anything, see?). I was nearly frantic about the missed turn but she shrugged and said we’d just take the next one.

What a radical and completely unexpected way to look at things. I was so impressed.

I was 50 years old when I walked away from the relationship I was in prior to meeting AleXander. It took a week or so for it to dawn on me that this was the first time since I was 18 that I’d been single. This from the woman who grew up certain that no one would ever love her (who wrote that line of code?). In a break from earlier dance moves, I did not immediately begin auditioning replacements for the previous partner.

Instead, I took a year off altogether and didn’t date or see (aka have sex with) anyone and then I spent a year in a long-distance skype-relationship with someone in Europe.

Other things I spent years certain I could not ever do on my own included traveling to Europe, finding and renting my own apartment, getting and keeping a full-time job with benefits, being accepted into and graduating from college, writing a book, being in a stable and loving relationship, moving to another city by myself, being a reliable friend, setting up a checking account, keeping more than one plant alive, and reading “Infinite Jest”.

Spoiler alert: I’ve done all those things. Some more than once.

How did I manage these amazing feats of adulting? Well, I didn’t rush into anything. I started college when I was 40. I flew to Europe on my own when I was 46. I got my first apartment of my very own that no one else — besides my cat, of course — lived in when I was 38. I’m your classic late bloomer. I blame my mother, who else?, who told my kindergarten teacher that “Tammy Lynn has two speeds: slow and stop”.

But, more importantly, I learned to accept help when it was offered and to ask for it when I needed it.

I watched how you managed to keep an orderly home and be there for your friends. I watched you navigate the unthinkable. Because of “you” — my friends, my tribe, my people — I know it is possible to live through cancer, deaths of partners and parents and even children, the loss of jobs and homes and health without losing heart, start from scratch after fires or floods or earthquakes or plain old bad luck, move to a different country and learn the language, and listen instead of waiting for my turn to talk.

No one gave me the manual running down these incredibly important things. In fact, no one got that mythical manual.

We’re all making it up on the fly. But none of us are making it up on our own. Even the most introspective of us are watching and learning. You’re doing it. I’m watching you do it. And you’re doing an amazing job! Just remember not to compare your insides with my outsides. On my best days, I look like I got this thing down. So do you. But inside we often feel like messy frauds.

We’re not.

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