Yes, indeed, I did; so can you.

Photo by Vicky Nicoll on Unsplash

I did it! I did it!

Excuse me. What did you do?

After installing a new WiFi router, I figured out why my Artificial Intelligence know-it-all, Alexa, wasn’t connecting to the internet. Oh, yay!

Um, folks might seem a bit puzzled by how suffused with joy you are in regard to what appeared to be a very ordinary action.

Okay, Okay. I was brought up as a Southern girl of the 1950’s and 1960s: black patent leather shoes, skirts (24/7), bouffant hairdo’s (OMG, the hairspray!), Home Economics was a High School requirement. Wait, wait, let’s just stop with Home Ec, that eponymous symbol for many things female, during the 50s and 60s.

“Historically, the purpose of these courses was to professionalize housework and to emphasize the value of "woman’s work" in society.”

Sigh.

And, boys? Boys were assigned to Shop, “teaching the basics of home repair and craftsmanship, useful skills that could potentially be parlayed into a career.”

Let’s just call this for what it was. A culturally perceived female chromosome judgment. Limited from taking a Shop course because, well, I was a girl and (heaven forbid) had two X chromosomes, but no Y’s! (Did this particular affliction inhibit a functional use of hammer and nails? Inquiring minds would like to know.)

Fortunately, I had a conniving mother who convinced the educational overseers that my participation in High School Forensics, rather than Home Ec, would do no lasting damage to my two X chromosomes.

Nonetheless, I never learned how to work with tools, use three dimensional thinking to build things or attain a concrete understanding of technology. The makings of my own deep internal block. I admit to being envious of women much younger than I who have true tool facility. A decade later, a female’s two X chromosomes no longer needed protection from tools and technology.

Over the course of beaucoup years, I bought into my not-so-small intimidation regarding building and technology skills. My default mode was composed of two-parts: 1) I’m intimidated by ALL things building and technical (cuz “I’m a girl”); 2) I’m gonna call someone else to do it for me! Part 2 was a consistent winner through the years and worked well until….

….this pandemic thing came along. Then all my easy avenues of outside help dried up. It was, now, just me. My solo voyage began. Once I’d encounter an internal technical or assembly conundrum, I decided to frame it as ‘playtime.’ Jan-is-playing-and-having-a-good-ol’-time! Whoopee! And, you know, I really was having fun with that reframe.

The playtime was actually a joy and unburdened by “shoulds.” And, darn, I found myself just nipping right along with computer quandaries. Oh, try this, not that. Yep, that worked! Wow! On to the next snarl….Each success bolstered my confidence. My beloved neighbors even began asking me, of all people, for computer software assistance.  Me!! I don’t know if my 2 X chromosomes were actually standing up straighter, but my internal spirit of “oh, wow, look at me! (and I’m a girl!) had certainly grown a backbone.

Is there a moral to this story? Just keep fiddling around, have fun, and run like crazy from any cultural or soul-harming “shoulds!”