a dilemma:

and i'm turning to you, all 5 of you, for research.

we all have things that we're not good at, right? i mean, beyond cursive and making lasagna and keeping your room clean...i'm thinking larger things...

like, say, though i often find myself the center of attention, i am not so good at getting the center of attention. those who know me will argue, but i will stand firm that, while i am a good attention-haver (meaning, i know what to do with it once its mine) i'm not so good at capturing attention...

so i found myself in this situation today, this very los angeles situation, where moments before, i parked my 19 year old honda in between two giant fancy suv monstrosities, and wove my way through a place i don't know well, past fancy leathers and shiny makeup counters and asked a very simple question. now, i got a totally honest and nice answer, i got a card with a phone number on it, but i might have taken that opportunity to at least, you know, tell the lady my name, or show her things that i had. nope, didn't. put the card in my backpocket, 180'd and got back into my car, all within 5 minutes, thanking chance that at least i didn't have to pay to park.

but i drove away feeling dumb, feeling like i let the whole thing slip away, that i took it too personally. and i gave myself a headache and then went to the grocery store (i HATE running out of coffee filters), and my dad called while i was there (yes, we're kind of talking again), and , all out of sorts, i told him what happened and his reaction was thus:

"yeah, you're not good at that kind of stuff."

to which i said, "i know, i'm thinking of asking mom to do it for me."

his answer, "she'll do it. she's better at that. and she works for you, right?" which, at the very least, made me laugh.

so then i came home with coffee filters and cinnamon rolls and talked to the boy about it. he was not so lenient. his was more the approach favored by my jr high school pe teachers whilst watching me attempt pullups: "just do it. take a big breath and do it. of course you can do it. in fact, its irrelevant whether you can or can't do it, cause you have to do it, so do it."

this approach fared no better than it did 15 years ago, oh dear, 20 years ago, and i quickly found myself retiring to the kitchen for tea and cinnamon rolls and, once the boy left for work, retiring to the bed for a too-long nap.

my mom called around dinner time {wait. has anyone else noticed how fascinated i am with food these days? this is new. ALL i think about is food. which is strange, because i've lost quite a bit of weight since the illness and i haven't been eating very much at all, when i can eat. well, wait, maybe thinking about food all the time now isn't weird. but its new. and foreign, and very entertaining to people here, until i eat the last cinnamon roll. ok, enough with the navel gazing...}, and i told her what happened. her reaction, i mean, without a beat, no pause, no nothing, her reaction:

"give me the number, i'll call tomorrow. you're awful at this stuff, you take it too personally..."

i mean, are they wrong for doing this? is this why i'm such a flake? or is there something to be said about being realistic and acknowledging things that we're great at, and not pushing things that we're not? i mean, mr gardner be damned, i never did a damn pullup, but i could rock a jump rope. do i have to be good at everything?

so i went back and questioned the boy. i told him that my mom was gonna do it. he reiterated what he said before, that it was irrelevant whether or not i thought i could do it, when the truth of the matter was that it had to be done. my answer was that it was going to be done, my mom was going to do it, and what was so wrong with that?

to which he shook his head and laughed and said that there wasn't anything wrong with delegation, as long as what had to be done, got done.

i'm still not sure. its still the battle between would you rather know everything about 5 things or 5 things about everything? i think i'd rather put my money on the eggs that will hatch. i think. am i mixing metaphors? good lord, too many cinnamon rolls.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I stumbled upon your blog one day while I was at work on my lunch break and I didn't get a chance to stay, so I made it a favorite. Now that I am able to come back I see that I love it! I am a completely and utterly shy person, so approaching people is not for me, but once a conversation gets struck up, I am good to go! You don't have to be good at everything. That's not how we were created. If everyone was good at everything, then we wouldn't need anyone else.
I can't wait to come back for more!