I have this jar of kosher pickles in my fridge I can’t open. It sits at the back of the fridge, taunting me since I moved here in 2013. I refuse to throw them out, and I refuse to ask for help. It’s become personal. I WILL open that jar of kosher pickles. I WILL.

In a way, I suppose it’s become this ultimate challenge.

And you know what Mom? I might just be close to conquering that jar. Really. This new job of mine is going to have me seriously ripped in no time.

But listen to this – so the other day with a co-worker half my age, and she’s nattering on about the weight of some of the boxes we were moving. It happens to be an integral part of our job. Heaving, hauling, climbing, bending, lifting… all that sort of stereotypical ‘male’ stuff. However, the company I work for doesn’t see it that way, and so we all pull our own weight, work together, and seem to generally share a ‘get er done’ mentality.

I’ve learned on the job that it’s really all just a matter of technique, mindset, and experience.

I’ll cut her a little slack, possible she was just having an “oh dear me, I’m just a weak girlie” moment, we all do. But I just nodded and continued along, wishing she’d just vanish, or stop talking. Which she did eventually.

One other thing I learned recently Mom is I could very easily become one of those old broads who could give a flying flopsy-doodle what anyone thinks.

I’ll admit, I get it, though.

I too at first felt like I was boxing out of my, er, weight-class (so to speak). Yet, yet?? I decided early on that until I’ve done it, how can I know I can not?

Over time, that physical challenge is the part I have grown to LOVE. Though it’s not ALL physical actually; but there is a certain component.

Don’t get me wrong, we all have our limitations. Yet, what if those limits are NOT gender based? Or based on size, or beauty, or age based, or whatever crutch people use to excuse themselves from actually trying.

I am not one to just flap my hands and whine “it’s toooo hard“.

Kind of a high really, thinking that I’m going to be 50 years old in under a year and a half, and I now know that I can hold my own with men and women half my age.

Though, as many of the other women in our department are all students, and often not in for the early morning jaunts, it is just usually me and a bunch of guys.

AND, they need my help as much as I need theirs. We each do our part.

So, in other news ~ I finally got Crossroads Man down to the secret old Apple Orchard other day. He was as delighted with it as I.

Yet, I still haven’t figured him out. Don’t know what we are to each other. But lately, I just want to go with the flow. Maybe not worry about definitions or labels. Maybe concentrate more on who people are, how they interact with their world. What passions they possess. All that good and noble stuff that makes people special.

Love,

for the Daily Prompt