Helping Out at Habitat for Humanity

i had the privilege just a week ago to put in a day at the Manse Road Habitat for Humanity site, here in Toronto. I was invited to go by my daughter who is a team lead there. She has been chasing after me for some time now, insisting that I would be up to it because I had expressed concerns about spending a whole day engaged in physical labour. My norm for a workday is one spent sitting at George Brown College.
Turns out - she was right. What a high the day was for me! I came home from it tired and more than ready to head to the couch, but it was a good tired. It was the kind of happy-tired that comes from putting yourself out to do something new and challenging, something that leaves you feeling like your day actually meant something. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that nothing was aching the next day, a bonus I put down to my regular workouts at the gym.
I spent the first little while involved in little things, like helping to clean up the site, walking around looking for stray bits of wood I could clear away, or dropped nails I could retrieve. In very little time, however, I found myself assigned to the chop-saw, a machine I had never before handled. I needed a little instruction, of course, but then I was on my own and feeling capable! A crew was skinning dimensional lumber with OSB (oriented strand board) and I was taking the orders for various needed lengths. I was really getting into manoeuvring that saw, I tell you.
After a lunch break, I got involved in sinking 2" nails home into the OSB, at a distance of about every 6 inches. I felt good first of all because I was able to swing the hammer with a single-handed grip while some other volunteers were strangling their hammers in two-handed vise-grips. It also felt good to challenge myself on the number of hits it took me to sink each nail. I was able to keep it down to 5 or 6 for most of them, although I managed a couple of them at just four. That felt extra good.
The camaraderie on such a site is a pleasant part of the day. People you've never met before are ready to share easy laughter and extra effort with you, and enjoy everything the day has to offer, side-by-side in a way that feels as though you had indeed known each other for much longer than an hour or two. Everyone was so accepting of everyone else.
Before we left the site, I was invited to write something on one of the houses on which I had worked. I wrote "Blessings on this house" on the rough opening of the patio door. That was another good feeling, just as pitting myself against the challenge of the required exertion had been, especially when I was wielding that hammer and when I was helping to dismantle some scaffolding.
The very best part of the whole day, though, came on the drive home with my daughter. This very capable young woman is so at home in that milieu, so obviously respected there and looked to for direction by many others. She graciously offered to allow me access to a special part of her life, to share her beloved Habitat workplace with me. I was concerned, very concerned at first, that she not find me lacking, not feel like she wished she had not invited me after all. In no time, I was too busy to give that worry a second thought, but it returned on the drive home while I waited for her comments on the day. What a feeling of pride she gifted me with; what a rush of happy relief when she said "Mom, you were awesome. I was proud of you."
She ended the day by inviting me to come back again. I think I might just take her up on that!