Inheritance

A little story about toggle bolts and self-reliance.

A week after I moved into the house, my mom and her husband flew in to help me get settled. While my mom and I unpacked 87 boxes and organized my kitchen, he got to work switching out every flush-mount basic boob light in the house. The first several he did himself, and every time one went up, I oohed and aahed at the difference a decent fixture makes.

After we broke down the final box, I started following him around, standing below the ladder and passing him the drill, the flathead screwdriver, the setting plate, wire cutters. I chased down the washers and tiny screws that inevitably fall when you have to hold something in place with one hand and twist, twist, twist with the other. I watched him thread the setting screws through the fixtures with the patience of a monk—and only realized how much patience it takes when he guided me through doing one on my own. The stamina! My neck!

Next, we moved on to hanging the television. Art. Mirrors. Curtain rods. Bathroom fixtures.

I learned what flat-nose pliers are. Wire nuts. Toggle bolts. Shims. How to patch a hole. How to secure the grounding wire. How to remove a molly without tearing the wall. I learned how to locate a stud. How to not electrocute yourself. The various settings on my drill and when and how to use each. How to approach hanging something on plaster walls with wood lath (like mine) versus drywall. When to keep trying and when to take a break and walk away.

We made approximately 42 trips to the hardware store. One day, he and my mom spent five hours going to Costco, Target, Best Buy and Lowe’s while I was busy organizing and setting up rooms. They bought storage containers, metal shelving for the basement, a few more light fixtures, light bulbs, a television and mounting bracket, cleaning supplies, the best retro Tupperware set, a tool bag.

Later, he organized and labeled my many random bins of tools and photo hanging kits and whatnot. I nearly cried.

I am forty-eight years old now and have been a single mother to my daughter for thirteen of her sixteen years. I’ve always made my own money. I’ve recovered from a deadly addiction, switched careers, pulled myself out of six-figure debt, started my own company, published two books, and I can lift heavy things.

I’m proud of all of that, but do you know what it’s like to hang your own seventy-pound mirror using toggle bolts? Install a complicated bathroom vanity light on your own?? Operate a drill like Xena the Warrior Princess going into battle???

What I’m saying is, what a gift, what an inheritance. In just three days, my stepdad taught me the basic skills to handle many of the most common tasks needed to manage my house—things that would otherwise have been outsourced to a man or simply not done. I now know how to problem-solve. I now know how to use my tools. I now know how to walk into the hardware store like a boss.

I don’t have to do it all myself, but if I want or need to, I can.

Behold: the 75 lb mirror. Yes, I cleaned it after I took this! 🫠

Earlier this week, I expertly hung a large piece of art in my daughter’s room, hung her surprisingly tricky wall-mounted jewelry organizer, and mounted a TV in her little hangout room. She lay on her bed as I was doing this, scrolling on her phone, half-watching.

As I maneuvered around her with the drill, the level, the pencil, the screws, I wondered if any of it registered—or if it might hit her ten or twenty or thirty years from now, when she’s my age, the way I look back on my mom now and think: damn.

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