I struggle with some of the dumbest things — like packaging.

A bottle of water confounds me.  Those foil lids on yogurt? Impossible!  I can open small jars with an old jar-opener that my son found at a garage sale years ago, but I can’t get cubes out of an ice cube tray and blister packs stump me.  It’s hopeless.

Zippers in the backs of dresses also aggravate me.  If someone’s around to pull them up or down, I’m okay, but left to my own resources, I reach the point of boiling.  I once tore the entire back out of a dress that my mother made me.  I never told her; I threw the dang thing away and never mentioned  it.

I understand this difficulty that I have, both physically and emotionally.  My hands can’t grasp many vessels; I’m not very strong and I’m plagued with this cursed spasticity. As for my reaction, when I am confronted with my own helplessness I sink into an abyss of self-judgment.  Six decades of insecurity seem to rise and every damn thing I’ve ever thought about myself engulfs me:  Not enough this, too much that, ugly, stupid, useless.  Unlovable.

I don’t often write about my raw emotions for public display.  I tend to sugar-coat them with the lessons that I learn in the after-math of their tidal waves.  But the gremlins and goblins that grip us lose power when exposed to light.

Yesterday, I met with a client and her family.  My client’s mother and stepfather had hired me a decade ago and brought this new case to me, still pleased with the work that I had done for them.  They attended this meeting with their daughter, the daughter’s boyfriend, and the fifteen-month old whose custody my new client seeks.

Before the serious business began, I handed small bottles of water around the table.  I sat and lifted mine, but realized that I wouldn’t be able to open it.  I passed it to the baby’s Grandma, who sat to my right.  She laughed and handed it to her husband, saying, “I’ve never been able to open these things,” with a careless laugh and a genuine ease.  And just that simply, I saw the monkey on my back shudder and slide to the floor.  It’s okay not to be able to open bottles, I told myself.  See?  It’s not the end of the world.  Nor does it mean there’s something fundamentally defective about me. I experienced a moment of palpable peace.

The monkey hovers.  I’m sure he’ll clamber back aboard my slim shoulders and wrap his hands around my face.  He’ll whisper in my ear, You’re not good enough!  Look how incompetent you are! and there will be times when I listen to him and hang my head; lonely hours, days when there’s no one nearby to wrench open a stubborn lid or reach the top shelf.  But I would not have said before yesterday that I truly believed that my inabilities did not diminish my worth.  For that moment, I had a keen understanding of the relative importance of the bane of my existence; and the fact that I coud see through the fog gives me hope that blue skies await me.