Many years ago, one fateful evening, I was trapped in an old folks’ home. My grandpa had moved into an assisted living facility where some of his friends were residing, and though the transition was rough, the 24/7 care he needed had started to outpace what my family could provide.
My mom and I visited him often, generally helping him with chores around his place and sitting with him while we watched movies. When I say “watching movies” I actually mean that I was attempting to give him play-by-plays of what was happening on the screen because his eyesight was non-existent (but he was not about to let that stop him from enjoying westerns). So after a night of shouting out “the guy in the black cowboy hat just shot at the rebels on horses!” and “no one in the tavern is willing to speak up about where the good guys are hiding,” he crawls into bed. My mom and I finish up with some cleaning and grab the door handle to leave his room. It doesn’t budge. We make sure it’s unlocked and try again, but the door isn’t opening.
If you know someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s, you probably know that they live in a state of confusion a lot. This confusion can lead to anger, despair, sadness, and possibly even violence. To add being trapped on top of those feelings would be a devastating mix, and my mother and I would be right in the thick of it. So we calmly try to call the front desk, but it’s late at night and everyone has gone home. The doors to the building are locked, so literally no one but staff can enter after certain hours. I look at my mom and her eyes are wide, filled with the terror that we could be sitting here all night before anyone comes to the rescue.
We look out the window to see how far of a drop it is from the second floor, thinking maybe we can tie bed sheets together and climb down. We look around the bedroom for any screwdrivers or emergency phone numbers. The only tool, and I sincerely mean this, is a dull butter knife. That is what we are working with.
I hand my phone with the flashlight on to my mom, and get to work with the knife on the door handle. I’m thinking there’s something with the locking mechanism that’s broken, and maybe if I can get inside the door handle I can either fix it or find a way to open the door anyway.
Now, I do not have an engineering degree. I do not know the mechanics of a door handle. I don’t take apart anything for fun. This is me, completely winging it. I manage to get the outer cover off, and start looking inside for any parts that look broken or perhaps in the wrong place. I then resort to just randomly touching things to see if any of them move. About this time, my mom’s pleading voicemail she left on the staff phone had been listened to and the maintenance guy was on his way. Thank god.
He gets to the door, takes off his handle cover, and starts poking around inside. At this point, we can see each other through the space where the door handle used to be. We can see freedom, the other side of the door. But the devastation continues. He says that he doesn’t have the tools to fix it from his end, and it’s on us to fix it from ours.
I can feel my mom slowly starting to panic. A general panic had been just below the surface the entire time, but now it was bubbling over. The bulk-produced meatloaf from 5 hours earlier has worn off. We’re hungry. We’re tired. We smell like moth balls and musky old drapes and suffocating perfume from the 20's. We start talking in rushed, whispered voices trying not to wake anyone up (particularly my grandpa), but the reality was sinking in that we were very likely doomed.
Not one to take defeat well, I kept plugging along with my trusty knife. I figure, if I just take apart the whole thing, at some point it’s going to have to open. I take out everything I can manage, and then just start poking the knife toward where I imagine the mechanism is to release the door. Miraculously, the door opens.
I’m in awe. My mom is in awe. The maintenance guy is in awe. Even the office manager who had shown up is in awe; we’re all standing there completely shook with disbelief. I just broke out of an old folks’ home with nothing but a butter knife. We prop the door open so that it can’t lock itself back, and we practically run out of the building to our cars, the fresh air, and freedom.
The next day his door is replaced, and my grandpa is none the wiser. But I know. And my mom knows. And the butter knife knows. And that’s what matters.
That situation tested our problem-solving skills, sure, but it also gave us a renewed sense of confidence, and perspective. Whenever my mom or I face a problem that seems daunting, potentially impossible, we think back to this night at the old folks’ home. The night we escaped with only a butter knife. And we take a look around us and figure out what our butter knife in our current scenario is. What is a tool we have that we can use to make progress? Maybe it’s a person we can call on, or maybe it’s a skill we have like organization, research, or even engineering.
Often we may look around and wonder how will we ever get to where we want to be, when we only have this? We see other people’s talents and paths, and may not realize the worth of what we already have. But we all have a toolbox filled with resources, and our resources will differ from everyone else’s. We don’t have to have a screwdriver, if we already have a butter knife.
So before you think you can’t accomplish something, or you think you’re absolutely stuck, take inventory of your toolbox and open your mind to the possibilities. There are many ways to move forward, and you only need one.
So be bold, babe, and use that butter knife to unlock your potential.
xoxo,
Bold Babe