Work It Out... Literally

 Some of my favorite memories of all time have been working hard with my family. I know that sounds weird, but, in all honesty, those are some of the times that I remember with the most clarity. Family vacations? I remember them and have fond memories of them… but they are not the first times that I think of when I think of times I became the closest to my family.

When I was really little, and we lived in my childhood home, I remember we had this small wood-burning furnace in our living room. Even now, I get the warm fuzzies thinking about that furnace. To allow that furnace to function, we as a family had to do an essential thing… we had to chop wood. I remember many cold Saturday mornings, usually wet and at the time very miserable, spent chopping and stacking wood with my family. My dad was the strong man, the only one able to chop the huge pieces of wood that he had gone out and chopped up with his chainsaw earlier. Thinking about that now, I never ever recognized the work that my dad did even before the work that we all did as a family.

Our system looked something like this: First, one of us girls would be in the truck bed, rolling the logs out of the truck to be chopped into pieces by my dad. This was the easiest job, so it was always the one that my middle sister sought after. (There may have been some grumbles because of that, but we have moved past that.) After being chopped, the other two girls would pick up armfuls of chopped wood and load them neatly under the direction of my mom in our little wood shed. Thinking of this, I can't help but smile when I remember how fun it honestly was. I remember the pride that I felt when my mom would load my arms full of chopped wood, especially when I could carry more than what my sisters carried. When we were finished, there was nothing that could beat the sense of accomplishment that came when seeing the woodshed completely full of wood and bunches of wood chips strewn around the ground and an empty truck bed.

The closeness that I developed with my family during those times was immense. I learned to love hard work, especially with others, to fulfill a purpose. I learned how to buckle down and finish what I have started, even if it isn't the most pleasant thing that I have ever done. I learned that laughing when you are exhausted is the best kind of laughter, and that everything goes a lot smoother if I am not making fun of Nicole the whole time. All of these are lessons that I probably could have learned in other ways, but will always be with me because I learned them in the way I did, with my family.

So what made chopping wood with my family such a good experience? Why is it that something that is so mindless could be so fulfilling? So fulfilling in fact that when I was struggling emotionally, I would seek after opportunities to work in that same kind of way just to experience that feeling.

If you think about it, when you are doing monotonous things, your brain has the time and ability to think of other things. Ever heard of the idea that your best thoughts come in the shower? Well, your body is so used to going through the motions of taking a shower that your mind is free to do what it wants without thinking through everything your body has to do. Then you add other people, doing the same kind of monotonous work, you automatically have something that connects and unifies you. It makes sense that with your bodies occupied and your minds free, you are better able to connect with each other, even if it is not a conscious experience. If I think about my experience chopping wood, you would always know who was having the worst time, even if they weren't verbally expressing it. Us working together in that unified way allowed us to be able to pick up on the signs and actions that signaled discontent, with us becoming more in-tune with each other.

My advice if you want a closer relationship with your family: start working with each other. It will bring miracles. It won't be immediate, but I promise it will come.