Crisis of Competence

I don't want to survive the Zombie Apocalypse, which is one of the reasons I don't have a disaster prep kit. I've written about this before, but I'd like to go out with the first wave. I was born in the age of Costco guacamole, and if I can't drive to Costco and buy a six-pack of mini guacamoles, then I don't want to live. It's that simple. 

Some people shoot their own hot dogs and grow (?) their own sourdough starter, but I'm going to starve in the end, and I am fine with that. Except that my level of incompetence is embarrassing and demoralizing, made worse by decades of living in Alaska where everyone seems to know intuitively how to not just survive, but THRIVE, for ten days in a snowbank with nothing but a scrap of fur and a matchstick.

But think of the children! What about your kids? Fortunately, they're growing up in Alaska and already know how to do a lot more useful things than I ever will.

I can't even sew a button onto a peacoat or fix a windshield wiper. Last week I called a friend to come to my office and help me with this button. My mom taught me how to sew, mind you; but rather than sew things, I would just walk around with loose buttons and holes in my clothes until they were too damaged to be of use any longer. Both my friend and I are former east coasters raised by striving academic Jews who, just a generation or two removed from Ellis Island, believed that the secret to conquering the American Dream was memorizing Latin declensions and Shakespeare sonnets and deriving equations in AP calculus. Between our two Ivy League degrees, we could barely sew a fucking button. My friend is also half blind, so we just sat there on the floor, huddled over my coat and laughing uproariously at our own ineptitude as I thread the needle and she tried to sew this button onto my coat.

Today one of my windshield wipers was acting kind of wonky after I'd had my car serviced. After inspecting the wipers for 15 minutes, I concluded that a piece was missing and went back to the service station to ask about it. The mechanic pushed the blade back up into the plastic housing of the wiper and looked at me like I was the biggest moron on earth and like . . . I FELT that, as the kids say.

I have an expensive education that I worked hard for and that I like to think I've used and continue to use for the greater good somehow. And I'm proud to say that I've never been voluntarily unemployed for a day in my life since age 17. But my lack of practical skills is really demoralizing and embarrassing. For numerous reasons that are too painful and private to get into right now, I'm going be jumping feet first into learning how to do a lot more practical things for myself, and while I welcome the opportunity to learn new things, I hate being terrible at stuff and I hate the embarrassment of incompetence.

Fortunately there'sYouTube and Google, which go a long way, but I still have a very long way to go even from there. It's kind of a shame spiral: I lack confidence in myself when it comes to things like basic car and house repair; home economics; computer and tech issues; pre-fab furniture assembly; etc. etc. Then the more confidence I lack, the more my neuroses kick in: I'm a bad feminist because I always count on some man to rescue me from a flat tire or a dead battery. I'm a spoiled princess because I was never made to learn these things. All my friends in Alaska--women!--know how to do this stuff. How can I STILL not know how to do this? I grew up in a city. I've never really mowed a lawn. I don't know how to garden and I can't tell lettuce from poison ivy. I resent myself and the adults who deprived me of these important skill sets. I resent myself for not forcing myself to learn them.

Recently I read a book called Breath by James Nestor. The subtitle was "The New Science of a Lost Art," but it might as well have been "Here's Another Thing You're Doing Wrong." The book was all about how regulating our breath is basically the secret to eternal health, mouth breathing is worse for you than smoking, and our teeth are all fucked up because of the soft foods we eat and the amount of snoring we do at night. 

But what I took away from the book was that here's one more thing I'm doing wrong that I need to fix. Something that I had heretofore thought was completely automatic turns out not to be automatic at all, but rather yet another thing that I can and should consciously change immediately, or otherwise court an early death. 

I'm sure eventually, if I just keep at it, fixing a dead car battery or troubleshooting a boiler will feel as automatic as breathing -- which is to say, something I've been doing wrong all along and will probably never learn how to do right.