Pushing at the pull door
When a locksmith gives you some wise words (twice).
The bruises on my legs are slowly disappearing but the embarrassment of my confession to you now is only just beginning. I can’t not open my front door. The simplest of tasks and yet it finds me wanting.
I have only lived at my new home for 6 months or so and already my door and I have had a complicated history. This started from the day I moved in. I struggled so much to open my front door that I had to ask my lovely removal man, Danny and my new neighbour, John to help me gain access to my new home. I immediately got a locksmith in the very next day who alleviated my embarrassment and incompetency by telling me the lock was broken anyway and he replaced it. Phew.
But now six months later, the door has sought its sweet revenge. Over the past month or so I have had several moments of struggling to get my keys to unlock the door. But just as panic sets in, I manage it and quickly dismiss my little drama as just that.
However last Thursday evening this was not to be the case. No matter how hard I tried, pushing on the door with the key and my shoulder (ouch), the door just wouldn’t budge. I admitted defeat. I had pushed so hard, that I had even bent my key!
Door - 1 v Suzie and the key - 0 (a future band name maybe?)
Thankfully all was not lost as I had left my living room patio door unlocked. Unfortunately to get there would involve a fair bit of core strength and flexibility, the kind my body hasn’t experienced since my gymnast days when I was a kid. But my annoyance mixed with embarrassment gave me the push I needed. And so without much hesitation, using my car’s rear bumper as leverage, I climbed onto my waste bin (nicely denting it in the process) so I could unlock my back door and access my home via the garden. The bruises on my legs would take a couple of days to appear and act as a reminder of the sorrowful event.
Safely within the confines of my home, I quickly resolved my anxiety with a plan of action and arranged for a local locksmith called Mike to visit the very next morning.
Mike arrived and gave my door a very decent MOT and declared there to be nothing wrong. Making no sense to me, I quickly reenacted for Mike the key/door drama of the night before. He observed, pondered and then smiled. He explained that where I have been pushing to open the door, I should have actually been pulling! I was working against the door. And the more I panicked, the more I pushed, the less chance of success.
As Mike was talking, a sense of deja vu came over me. It was only about two years previous, at my old home, that another locksmith had been giving me the exact same advice! This was all making sense to me now.
The whole experience made me think of one of my favourite Gary Larson “Far side” cartoons….
This situation about my front door was so reflective of my way of being in the world. Pushing and exerting so much effort, sometimes hurting myself in the process when what I actually needed to do was relax and let things come to me. To pull towards not push against. It was only a front door, but the experience had a more profound meaning for me. One I clearly didn’t pay enough attention to the first time around, hence why I needed to experience it again.
As Mike headed for his van, he left me with some very wise advice. He told me to “take the pressure off and don’t overthink it”. Of course he was talking about the lock, but with a chuckle, I exclaimed “oh Mike, you know me so well!”
Many thanks for reading.💙
P.S. Mike also informed me that he studied the entire works of Carl Jung and the experience led to him getting divorced! He described this as a positive experience, (sorry to Mike’s ex-partner). I thought what a lovely coincidence given I studied Jung also, but of course Jung would call it synchronicity!
P.P.S. Normal service has resumed with unlocking my front door (my waste bin is much relieved).
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash