I Got This

“You Go Girl”

Earlier in the year -- pre-pandemic, when school was in session -- Liv came home from Pre-K saying things like "I believe in myself. I can do it." I was impressed with her teachers, and proud of my girl. No better time than the present to learn self-reliance. Of course I want Liv (and Mia) to grow up feeling capable and confident. I try to set a "girl power" example and model being a strong woman. Sometimes I falter. And now, it seems, Liv is teaching me. I started stealing her "I believe in myself" trick, and it works. Case in point: 

I'm not the most tech savvy person, which is funny because I work at a tech company. But of course one of the best parts of working at a tech company is that colleagues and especially the Help Desk are tech wiz's and can assist at any given time. Except during a pandemic. Our IT support is still available to help remotely, but it's not the same. Now if I have a tech issue, they provide me with instructions and I have to tackle said issue myself. Teach a woman to fish, I suppose. 

A month or so ago (I think? What is time?) my work computer failed me. I noticed my charger port was no longer working. I frantically pinged my tech savvy friends and IT dept. I even texted Hubs (who is good at this stuff) for help, using multiple exclamation points. He was on work calls and couldn't come to my rescue. No one could. But IT support did give me instructions for saving myself. They provided directions (via Apple) that seemed overwhelming and scary. I had to check if my computer had a certain chip and it was all very confusing. But I followed the instructions. I said out loud, "I believe in myself." Standing, sweating, at the kitchen counter where my computer was perched and rapidly draining battery, my kids wreaking havoc around me, I announced to everyone (and really, to myself) that I Can Do it. 

And I did it! It worked. I reset something. I rejiggered another thing. I fixed my charging port. I was ecstatic. Like extra thrilled. Literally dancing. Because I did it myself. Nobody did it for me. I felt so capable and powerful, truly proud of myself. And something else very cool happened. I was ignoring my kids because I had to tend to this urgent IT issue. Liv, for the first time, wrote the whole alphabet with crayon in her notebook. And she started teaching Mia the letters. No prompting from me whatsoever. I was so proud of myself, and so proud of my girls. We can do anything we put our minds to. We can do anything if we believe in ourselves.

AES