The satisfaction of working with your hands
2006-10-22I’ve spent most of my evenings during this past week, working on the new house. I spent ten hours on Saturday, working on the new house. I’m looking forward to a new week…of working on the new house.
They tell me that there’s a certain satisfaction to working with your hands. They tell me that there’s a certain satisfaction to working on your own house. They tell me that it’s a special feeling.
They’re wrong.
I take no satisfaction in this work, nor, quite honestly, am I anticipating feeling satisfied. I would be just as happy if someone else were doing it. At the end of each night, I feel empty. Even cutting and hanging drywall yesterday all by myself gave only the mildest thrill. You know, something along the lines of “Thank God I didn’t screw that up too badly”.
I used to tell myself that I’d feel different when the work is done, that I’d walk by the walls that I helped hang and think, “I did that.” But no longer. I rather doubt that I will think anything of the kind. It’s all assembly-work, just putting Tab A into Slot B. I don’t get satisfaction from assembly-work in other areas of my life, and I refuse to lie to myself about it now.
Instead, when I come home, I look at the bedroom which my children share. Sure, there’s a connecting doorway, but I can’t close it off. So, functionally, my daughter is sharing a room with her brothers. Justice sleeps in his playpen next to her anyways. I look at the latest mess that Noah has left in Arianna’s room, because we can’t keep him out. I try to be helpful in the kitchen but end up camped out at the dining room table, trying to do food prep.
If we were staying longer, we could probably make arrangements to care for some of these things. But we can’t.
And so, tomorrow, I’ll skip dinner again to walk down the block to work on the new house. I’ll shore up my spirits, trying to ignore the nagging voices that tell me that it will never be done. And I’ll do what has to be done.
Because my family needs it.