Conquering/Coping with FEAR

This house project has been a big stretch for me. Dave can handle being in process a lot better than I can, perhaps it's that compartmentalizing of the male brain. But for me unfinished projects add additional stimuli to my taxed brain that are constantly triggered by my everyday activities. I need to get Aleah's coat on - notice there is no trim around the inside of the front door - need to get this done. I need to sew a peice onto a costume - go out to the garage, rummage through six different boxes to collect the majority of necessary tools - got to get the basement craft room done. Go downstairs to collect ingredients for cooking dinner - walk on mostly finished tile - got to get this floor done. Drive up to the house - see the multi-colored patches where additional prime was painted to a few small sections - got to get that painted.

We were heading to a crisis. The siding needed to be painted before winter. Winter is coming quickly. Dave is working 12 hour days, six-plus days a week. We went substantially over budget on the remodel so we have to paint ourselves. Guess that leaves me.

Dave taught me to use the ladder and we had a few warmer days this week. So I painted. Did I mention that just changing the sheets on the top bunk has me swooning from its height? Wednesday I was out to beat the storm and I wrestled that big ladder, the height, and my fear all day and got paint on all the faces of the house. When it got dark, I pulled out Dave's halogen lights and began a second coat on the east side of the house where the down spouts go so we could put them back on before the storm hit.

I get really scared up at the top. When the ladder is extended and leaning against the house, I feel safer. But when I have to paint above those big windows on the face, the ladder can't lean against them and I have to A-frame the ladder. Extended as high as it will go in that orientation, I have to stand on the second to top rungs, straddling the apex of the ladder between my calves. I practice breathing up there to keep from passing out.

At the end of the day Cambry said, "Mom, you're conquering your fears!" Riley cut the congratulations short with, "I don't think conquering is quite the right word." He's right, I was coping at best. But there IS paint on the house!

I know I was a spectacle because folks noticed me painting and mentioned it to me at church today. Shortly after I set up the lights Wednesday night, a neighbor as old as my mom (Venice Bienholt), pulled up and asked if she could help me. Hesitantly, I conceded to let her paint low parts. She came back, husband in tow, and chatted with me for a couple of hours while Frank and I covered the east side with its second coat. I have thought about how much that meant to me lately. It took a sister, one who has had to pull the reigns at home herself, to perceive that I was doing something because it needed to be done, not because I was comfortable doing it. And though she couldn't climb ladders and didn't even stroke a brush, she eased my burden. Frank called me the next morning to see if I was painting. I think he intended to come help me again if I was. It's not an easy thing to save me. But I have to love the people who try anyway.