RESPONSIBLE ADULT

For months now, I’ve been telling Michael that I think I need new brakes on my car. Every time I say it, he tells me that I don’t need new brakes. I’m surprised he doesn’t pat me on the head when he says this because his tone implies that there’s no way that I, a female, would know anything about brakes. Last week I messaged my friend Lyn to see if he could look at my brakes. I met Lyn at the June session of Camp Wildling. He taught the charcoal drawing classes, but he also has his own mobile auto repair business. If you live in the Kansas City area, do not hesitate to contact Lyn with car stuff. He’s honest and does good work. Lyn told me that my front brakes were fine, but I really needed to replace the back brakes. He came over Saturday morning to replace those back brakes and it turns out that I didn’t even really have any back brakes. The old ones, at least one of them, had seized open and was not doing anything.

I can just see my dad closing his eyes and bowing his head while shaking it side to side in disappointment.

I now have new back brakes and four new tires. My car no longer makes that occasional clunkadunk sound it’s been making lately and when I hit a bump in the road while braking, my car no longer makes that grrrrr sound it’s been making for a while. I feel really responsible and grown up because I feel like I nailed adulting on Saturday. Here are all the things I did before noon on Saturday: made sure Michael and The Cabbage got up in time for the Cabbage’s 8 AM soccer game, added words to my journal while eating a breakfast sandwich, grocery shopped, cleaned out chicken coop/pen and put down fresh straw, cleaned the bathroom, folded and put away two loads of laundry, stripped the sheets from my bed, put clean sheets on my bed, took a shower, talked with Lyn about car stuff, sat on the couch and read a chapter of The Lightmaker’s Manifesto (go pre-order your copy right now!).

I am about half way through The Lightmaker’s Manifesto and I’m already feeling the wheels turning in my brain. Right from page one, I felt like Karen was speaking directly to me. I can’t help but feel like I am currently in a one on one life coaching experience and I am rewiring my brain to see activism in a different way. I spent some time journaling on Sunday, making a short list of goals for the month of October and the whole time, I was thinking about all the ways I can be an activist without marching in protests. The more I read, the more I realize that I can be doing a lot more and without much effort. Then Karen shared this quote with the Lightmaker’s team for our prompt this week.

Integrity is choosing to practice your values, rather than simply professing them. - Brene Brown

Am I practicing my values? Not only that, but am I practicing my values in a noticeable way? I don’t think I am. I think I have picked up a bad habit of talking about these things, about being a kind, patient, good person, without ever taking any action to do so. Now, I realize that I am the most judgemental towards my own self. Of course I am kind and I am mostly patient with others, but are these actions big enough to inspire those around me?

Case in point: Saturday afternoon, Michael and I were leaving IKEA. We had to stop at the door because the woman in front of us paused in the doorway to apply hand sanitizer and there was no way around her. She was an older woman, wearing a mask, doing all the right things, but Michael was so put out by the way she had inconvenience him. I tried to be soothing. I said “at least she’s pausing to do something to help end the spread of viruses.” but this didn’t do much to calm Michael and in the end, I let it go and let him rail on with his rant. I don’t think people realize how wearing a mask effects their peripheral vision. It messes you up and is even worse if you wear glasses. I am sure that this woman didn’t even realize that there were people behind her. If I had been truly practicing my values, I would have spoken up and said “let’s try to have patience for others. This woman clearly doesn’t realize that there are people behind her waiting to get out, but let’s cut her some slack because she’s wearing a mask and using hand sanitizer.” This was a missed opportunity to advocate for the elderly and to advocate for patience. It is time for me to hold myself accountable and be more responsible in practicing my values.

Because I am a responsible adult.