Continuing my examination of things that can be known, but can not be fully grasped without personal experience (see also - dogs are angels and we do not deserve them), owning a home is exciting but VERY stressful.
During our first week as homeowners, I could be found either neurotically sniffing the air (“Does something smell like gas to you??”) or in an exploratory crouch, repetitively/psychotically patting the ground at the slightest hint of moisture. My mom attributed this neurosis to the multiple flooding incidents that happened in our childhood, including an especially jarring morning where I got out of bed and felt my feet hit the ground with a splash. Whatever the reason, gas leaks and water leaks literally haunted my dreams.
Eventually I found both in our laundry room. Luckily for me, replacing the hoses for the gas and water line was relatively simple. I started a load of laundry and called my husband in to bear witness to my victory, water surging through the new hose into the washer without a drip in sight. I envisioned myself becoming the type of homeowner who was independent, who never had to call in the professionals. I pictured my husband telling people that I was “the handy one” and basking in the glow of self-righteous gender-role-reversal. Unfortunately, my smug daydream was short lived. Upon starting the dryer cycle, the gas smell was back full force. I made a decision to call my dad, reasoning that this was still a step away from admitting defeat, aka professional help.
My dad instructed me to mix dish soap with water and spray it onto various parts of the gas pipe - it would bubble wherever gas was leaking. Armed with this mysterious potion, I wrestled the dryer away from the wall and crouched down among the dust bunnies and detritus. Squirt, squirt.
Like magic, frothy bubbles appeared right at the connection between the gas line in the wall and the pipe connecting it to the dryer. I continued to squirt along the length of the pipe, just to make sure there were no other problems. Satisfied that I had isolated the source of the leak, I turned the gas off and headed to Lowes for the 5th time in two days.
$4 dollars and 20 minutes later, I arrived home with a small roll of plumbers tape, which I carefully wound around the seams of the gas line before dubiously reconnecting the tubing. I reopened the gas line and waited a moment before tentatively squirting it again with my soap potion. Not a bubble in sight, it dripped harmlessly onto the ground as I continued squirting. I shrieked triumphantly.
I wish I could end the story here, at my hard-won victory against my noxious enemy. I felt so satisfied, competent, and confident in my ability to problem solve. It felt unreasonably important to me that I should not rely on Sam to manage household problems, a rebellious overcompensation against the model of marriage that had been imprinted onto me at a young age. I knew that I hadn’t acted alone, obviously - I’d had help from my dad and a random gentleman in the hardware store who advised me while I selected plumbers tape. But I had still done the work myself, and this felt significant. The hubris was strong. A (literal) storm was coming.
After a weekend away in early October, we returned home on a rainy Sunday evening. I walked across the living room to plug in my phone charger and as I approached the sliding glass door, I felt my socks dampen unmistakably. Dropping to the ground, I discovered a 2 foot soggy spot right next to the door. Sam responded quickly to my urgent calls and pulled back the carpeting slightly, revealing some very wet subflooring. I poked it gently with my finger and almost gagged when it went straight through.
“Oh man.” Sam sighed, “This is definitely not a new problem.”
I couldn’t believe how quickly this neurotic fear had become a reality - had I somehow manifested this?! We’d had an inspection, of course. Had I been naïve to trust that meant everything was sound? A house is a complex and mysterious thing. I imagined what else could be happening within the walls and wiring and bones of this structure that I had taken for granted. I missed being young, and having someone else in charge of these details. I was aware of how privileged I was to be melting down about this, specifically. But I couldn’t help it; I sat on the ground and started crying pathetically. Sam looked at me with the same alarm and fear that I felt, and I resented him for it. I wanted him to know how to fix it.
Like an old dog, my brain went straight down the neural pathways that had been laid down years before. Sam was the dude in the situation, so he should fix it or at least make a move to figure it out. He appeared to be as overwhelmed as I felt. I wanted him to reassure me, to project confidence. In my moment of (admittedly insignificant) crisis, I wanted him to protect me. I did not agree with this desire on many levels, but it was there nonetheless.
I made yet another SOS call to my dad, who kindly paused his NFL game and drove over to assess the situation. He couldn’t do much - gave me a hug, helped us prop up a couple of box fans to dry out the carpet, and gave us the phone number for someone to call in the morning. But it made me feel slightly better.
Afterwards, as Sam and I were debriefing, I asked him if he was embarrassed that we were such clueless homeowners. Having my dad there had made me feel even more like a child, immature and inexperienced. I wondered if enlisting help made him feel emasculated (barf), but he shrugged it off.
“No, I don’t care, I mean, we’ve never done any of this before. Of course we need help. Of course we are inexperienced. Being a guy doesn’t mean I intuitively just know this stuff, or that I’m better at understanding it.” This may sound obvious, but I was struck by how pragmatically he was able to view the situation, and how shameless he felt about asking for help. He was not indoctrinated by the same gender roles that I was, and thus does not suffer from the whiplash of interchangeably embodying them or flailing against them. I was still reckoning with my own reaction - trying to untangle why my instinct was to seek shelter/comfort in this crisis from the men in my life, even though the solution was far beyond either of their capacity.
The next morning, my mom called and actually had much more insight about addressing water leaks and damage. How had I missed the fact that it actually was often her dealing with these things, making countless phone calls and hardware runs with 5 kids in tow while my dad was at work? When we built a new house, she coordinated all of the details and worked with the contractors. When our house flooded years later, she spent hours carefully laying out books and photos to dry. Recently when my grandpa passed away, she travelled to Florida alone, sorted and sold all of his belonging (including multiple cars), then single-handedly staged and listed his house. I’m sure that even my dad would admit, she is better in a crisis.
There is a lot to unpack with how gender roles were presented to me as a kid. I’m sure this will come up again and again. But I have been working on being more clear-headed about where these came from, which includes being gracious to my parents and not assuming they were the source of it all. In reality, I think a huge majority of it was formed by the books I read (mostly historical fiction by conservative YA authors, yikes) and what I was being taught at church. And while parents do bear responsibility for being gatekeepers of these things to a degree, it has helped my relationship with them greatly to realize that they were not directly responsible for bringing toxic ideas about gender into my young brain.
I am and should continue working to re-route my neural pathways regarding gender, but feeling smug about fixing something my husband couldn’t is not the move, and is not a win for women. Put simply, I was conflating my own pride with subverting the patriarchy. Also, I am a damn hypocrite because as soon as there was an issue I truly felt powerless to tackle I was like sAM wHY doN’t yoU kNoW hOW tO fiX tHiS wiTH uR mAN hAnDS?!? I am a work in progress.
Much like our house ;) - to finish the story, we did have to call in the professionals. Replacing and sealing a sliding glass door and 3 square feet of subflooring is not something one can responsibly tackle with some youtube videos. I welcomed the handyman into our home with reverence - broken, humbled, but at least with a good metaphor. There is no shame in admitting you are not infinitely capable, of fixing yourself or your house. As always, s/o to my therapists past and present - sometimes you just have to call in the professionals.
This is so so relatable on so many levels! I feel less alone! I find myself struggling with gender roles a lot with my husband and us buying a house with lots to do on it just exaggerates it. Thanks for sharing Audrey. You have a beautiful way with words.