Notes from Maine - 2022/12/18
Shoveling the other day, I had a pain in my elbow. This was out in the horse pasture. My left hand grips halfway down the handle and my right palm goes against the end. This allows me to put serious pressure on the rake to push through grass, rocks, or snow. But every time I tried to push, I felt a sharp pain.
I stopped, took a breath, and tried to switch hands. Nope. It was like trying to sign my name with the wrong hand. I can’t shovel with the opposite grip. When I retire a pair of gloves, it’s always because I’ve worn a hole in the palm of the right one. That’s when it occurred to me—I’ve been shoveling every single day for more than twenty years. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to change sides.
That made me wonder what other things I’ve consigned myself to. Not just physical things—I’m sure there are plenty of decisions, points of view, and approaches that I slipped into decades ago through repetition that I haven’t revisited since. Some of those mental pathways might be causing me harm and I don’t even suspect it.
What’s the right way to take a step back and reevaluate? About thirty years ago, I had a job that I despised. An opportunity arose to turn my temporary position into a permanent one, which meant more money and stability in a terrible job market. I fought hard to get that permanent job and then I lost it to someone much more qualified. For a long time I was furious. Later, after I changed companies and found an even better job, I came up with a decent reframing of the situation.
It was as if I had been holding a giant rock over my head. Arms vibrating with exhaustion, sweat pouring down my face, I fought to hold the rock until someone told me I wasn’t qualified to carry it. And I had been furious at the person who took it away, instead of grateful that I wasn’t carrying the rock anymore. But I couldn’t see that until I had a new opportunity and a lot of distance. Maybe with time and experience, I can evaluate situations more clearly now, but I’m not certain of that. It takes change, I think. There are opportunities that I’m not seeing because I’m entrenched in my current perspective. Is that someone that gets worse with age? I think it might be.
My brother used to shake his head and say, “CPI,” when my father dismissed potential solutions to an issue. It stands for Contempt Prior to Investigation. Most recently, it was about Dad’s recliner. All day, Dad was able to get up and down, switching between chairs, his wheelchair, and his walker with no real issues. But by the end of the evening he had a, “Devil of a time,” getting up from the recliner. My brother took him shopping to find one of those recliners with an ejector seat—a button to gently lift Dad to a standing position.
Dad wouldn’t hear of it.
“No. Your grandfather had one of those and it nearly killed him.”
It was true. Forty years ago, Grandpa got one of those chairs and the motor burned up and started a very small fire. Using that as his only evidence, Dad refused to even consider the possibility that the chairs were now perfectly safe and used by thousands if not millions of seniors every day. Maybe that was just the argument he was using because he didn’t want to spend money on a new chair. He fell twice getting up from the recliner. One time he broke his ankle. Oh well.
I’ve just decided—I’m going to switch to only left-handed shoveling until I’m comfortable with it. Perhaps I can avoid CPI. I doubt it.
