There is a popular writer by the name of Glennon Doyle, who over the years, has coined the phrase “We can do hard things.” Her audience is predominantly women – the kind of women who have seen plenty of hard times and were desperately in need of a funny, poignant, and honest writer to push them through the goalposts of life’s challenges. I have read all her books, saw her in person at an author event, and listen to her podcasts. I’m a huge fan so when the kids were having problems, Mark’s funding dried up, or I was worried about anything, I would repeat her mantra with the fervency of my grade-school-self touching each bead of the rosary like a budding, little saint in the batter’s box.
IcandohardthingsIcandohardthingsIcandohardthings.
Oh, yes I can. I can do hard things.
Then Mark died and everything became hard. On a cold night during those early days, the smoke detector went off at three a.m. and the battery, incased inside and shrieking nonstop, pushed me close to the edge. I couldn’t shut if off until I got a hammer and beat it, the next day the dog ran away, the car needed repair, the holidays were coming, I barely slept. All of this was on top of the after-death things that consumed my life, but I kept showing up for the hard things like the infantry and getting them done. I couldn’t tell you how, I just did.
The hard things come less often these days which is a gift because I was about to collapse under the weight. My new normal has been mostly free of fear until this summer when mice decided my garage seemed like a good place to homestead. Every time I’d pull the garage door up I’d see a mouse scurrying about, and every time it scared the living bejeezits out of me. I resorted to banging on the door before I opened it to give the Meeska Mooska Mousketeers time to hide which they never did because they had a good attorney who told them that possession is 9/10ths of the law. I’d wring my hands and worry and incessantly read how to get rid of mice on the internet. Will, who had been setting traps for me, said that I needed an exterminator and I said, “No, honey, you see I feed you and your beau a fine meal every Sunday and whether you realize it or not, you have entered Bartertown. Now you two get out there and start doing some gang banging. Chop chop. I want to see dead bodies.”
Then my neighbor told me she had such a big mouse in her house she thought maybe it was a rat and I said to myself, “Speckled Trout, you gots to get your shit together on this mouse problem or you’re going to have Ratatouille in the kitchen and you don’t have a husband to handle such a thing.” So I went to Target and headed straight to the liquor department, the shoe section, checked out the Hearth and Hand aisle, browsed the books, and then went to the candle aisle for peppermint oil. The internet said THE MICE HATE PEPPERMINT and I came home and sprinkled it like confetti and I am here to tell you something incredibly shocking. It. Did. Not. Work. Neither did the Pesticator which emits a sound that mice find offensive. What is this sound? Nobody knows but it cost $35 and I set my money down and never thought twice that maybe this whole mouse eradication bizness is a racket.
One night while reading in bed, I heard something in the ceiling and here’s an interesting twist to this story. I have two cats that somehow could not be bothered hunting mice unless it’s at the downspout of my neighbor’s house where they camp out because actually physically chasing after mice isn’t necessary when they just drop down in your lap. So that Sunday I told Will he had to go in the attic and set a trap. “How am I supposed to do that?,” he asked and I told him his dad did and NEVER COMPLAINED and maybe he shouldn’t either so he squeezed his shoulders through the small opening in my closet and set a trap. The next week he squeezed back in and the trap was empty and I let out a sigh of relief because that mouse must have up and left because it knew I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Hashtag blessed.
A few days later I was doing laundry, and the sticky trap for the jumping crickets (and that’s a whole other story) that was in the corner of the basement was flipped upside down. That seemed odd so I flipped it over and there was a tiny mouse glued to its death and I lost it. I got in the car, drove to the hardware store, and bought another Pesticator and more traps. I got steel wool and shoved it in every crevice I could find around the garage. I got the high school kid who mows my grass to come down and assess my basement for entry points. I handed him a flashlight and he Sherlocked Holmes the place like a boss. A friend of Mark’s came over and set more traps in the garage, and when Will and Nick came over this Sunday I asked them to check all the various traps. “Yesterday that one in the corner had two babies on it,” I said, and Will found it, picked it up, and said it looked like somebody had been eating them. “I think you have rats,” he said, and the beauty of having adult children is being able to honestly ask them something (without hurting their little feelings) like, “Why are you being such a shit and saying that when you know it’s going to freak me out?” He laughed maniacally and hadn’t even gotten in his car and pulled away when I was on the internet trying to find out who eats baby mice.
When I was a little girl and at my grandma’s house a mouse ran across the kitchen floor. I screamed. “Hand me my broom, honey,” my grandma said to me and she smoked that mouse out, gave it a good whack, swept its dead body into the dustpan and tossed it out the door. I thought she was the bravest person I ever knew. Now I think that after losing two husbands prematurely it had more to do with her goddamn nerves being shot than bravery.
As of today there were no dead rodents in any of the traps, and even though this mouse cartel may be on the run, what little that was left of my frayed nerves is shot to hell. I need to get back to my regularly scheduled tragic life, and so I am terminating my membership in the I Can Do Hard Things Club. I’ve got nothing left to give, I’m cooked, tired, done with all the hard things. I do love a group project, though, so I am starting the I Am Sick of This Shit Club where the mantra is whattheactualfuck which I’ve been saying daily for the last four years.
I am also going back to the hardware store for a good, sturdy broom because my grandma really was the bravest person I ever knew.
