I don’t always mind struggle.  It can be invigorating at times to have a puzzle to figure out.  There is a task needing to be completed and it requires some ingenuity, focus and perseverance to finish it.  I truly don’t mind that.  Certainly there are times I am not particularly in the mood for a struggle, plenty of those times, and I’m sure I’ll write about those at some point. But overall, I enjoy having to figure things out, unless…

Unless it’s a public struggle.  Unless someone else might be looking on.  Unless the struggle draws attention to my hand and is the cause of the struggle.

I don’t want sympathy from people.  I usually just want to be left alone with my struggle.  Left alone to figure it out and master it on my own.  But that isn’t always possible.

When it is taking me longer than usual to tie my shoe because the laces are a bit slippery and my right hand can’t quite grasp…this doesn’t usually bother me when I’m on my own, but if I’m out with a friend and my struggle is causing a delay I want to cringe and hide.

Chances are they don’t care, in the best way possible.  Don’t care as it it doesn’t bother them.  But I care and it bothers me and once the struggle is taking place the feeling of self-consciousness can become overwhelming, making it worse.

Well, it happened again yesterday.  I friend loaned my girls one of her portable weaving looms.  She is one of those crazy-crafty people.  She can sew just about anything, she knits, crochets, and does crafts with her kids.  She also was an avid weaver once upon a time and now has a collection of looms gathering dust.

A few months ago she loaned us a loom for my girls to get a feel for weaving.  We finished our project and yesterday was the day that the project would be evicted from the loom.

It was all a step by step endeavor and my friend would tell us just what we needed to know for the next step: from warping to the weaving and finally to the finishing.

She cut the strings and showed me how to tie off the ends so that the weave stays tight.  She started on one end, I on the other and we would meet in the middle.

So I’m doing my best to tie, one section at a time, and I know my pace is way slower than hers.  I’m clumsier for sure.

If I at any point turned to her and said, “Hey, this is really tough for me.  My hand makes tying things very difficult, would you mind finishing it?”  I have no doubt she would say, “absolutely, I didn’t realize,” and finish without a second thought. But that would require 1. drawing attention to my hand, and 2. declaring that this is a struggle.

Pride makes both of those undesirable.

If I was in my own house tying it off and it took me a crazy amount of time because of my hand I wouldn’t think twice.  It is what it is and I simply need to finish.

But having that audience changed everything.  I suspect it is mostly in my head.  My hand is not the foremost thought on other people’s minds, but it so often is on my mind.

I can’t always struggle in private however — I have kids and they have needs.  So my preferred method of private struggle is simply not an option.

Tying their laces (although I usually buy shoes with velcro!! 🙂 takes longer than a 3 year old wants to wait, but Mom simply cannot go any faster.

Zipping their jacket – requires an otherwise squirmy child to remain very, very still because if they wiggle at all while I’m trying to get the two sides hooked together and the zip started, it falls out and I have to start all over.

Braiding hair – I have two girls with beautiful, long hair.  They love braids.  It was only in the last year that I was able to do that for them, and only when their hair is wet.  Wet hair sticks together better making it doable for me to manage a braid.  But if I can’t get it quite right the first time, chances are I can’t do it at all because my hand will begin to hurt tremendously and I just cannot go on.

I’ve been typing now for over 700 words and my right hand is getting sore, and there is nothing I can do to avoid it.  It’d inevitable.  And I simply have to deal with it.  Hopefully accept it.  And maybe even embrace it.