Competence

I haven't felt very competent lately, for obvious reasons. When a situation is completely out of your control - or anyone's - competence is pretty far down the list.

It helped last week when the counselor told me I was doing my most important job - parenting - well. Although that feeling was mitigated somewhat by Miz Liz having a really rough week at school. She's more affected by what's going on around here than she lets on. Or maybe more than she can articulate. But we worked it out with her teacher, by adjusting bedtime and the like. A rested child is a happy child.

And then today? Today I did something I've never done before, and I did it well.

I changed a headlight on my car.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal. But let's just say that my mechanical skill is pretty much limited to hanging pictures on the wall, and even then I tend to have to tweak the positioning.

But I did it, allbymyownself. I went to the store and used the little computer to determine which light I needed (that's more my thing; I'm more of a software kinda gall). I popped my hood, turned the little gasket, pulled out the old bulb, popped in the new one, turned the gasket the other way, and did what we in tech support call Testing the Resolution (yeah, turned on the headlights).

So I feel competent today.

And it feels damn good.