Sweat Equity

I just spent the last hour researching how to cook fish that you catch yourself. Like, fish out of a lake. Specifically, three rainbow trout and a large-mouth bass that we caught on a recent fishing trip with my son’s Cub Scout pack.

Have you ever been to a Cub Scout Trout-a-ree? Me neither.

At least, up to that point. When that excited little boy asked me if we were going fishing, I had to swallow a groan and then felt just a tinge of panic.

Quick regroup. Pull it together. Make a plan.

Realize I have no idea how to pull off a successful fishing trip.

Panic again.

Now, while this whole experience of eating food you catch might seem old-hat and easy to some of you experienced fisher-folk, this is a whole new skill set for me.

Let me back up 30-ish years. The last time I went fishing I was about 11 years old, and I’m fairly certain I didn’t touch a fish, clean or fillet a fish, nor had much to do with any part of that stream-to-table dinner we had that night.

My dad took care of all that. Sweat equity.

It’s not that I don’t eat fish…in fact, I enjoy most types of fish. But, when you catch that fish yourself, there’s a whole set of things that go along with making it ready to eat.

And like we milspouses do, especially when our take-care-of-the-gross-stuff partner is deployed, I decided I needed to be ready for pretty much any and all of it. Mostly, because I didn’t want to disappoint my very excited 7-year-old on his first-ever fishing trip.

So, I find myself sitting at my kitchen table, scouring the internet to make sure I get this just right and, at the same time, shaking my fists at both deployments and love.

Deployments, you can understand, right? But, are you asking, “What’s love got to do with it?”

Fast forward to fishing day. We’ve got fishing poles. We’ve got about 50 different lures, powerbait colors, and live bait to choose from. We’ve got a wagon loaded with camp chairs, snacks, drinks, and warm clothes.

I pulled that wagon through the mud, over bridges, down steep inclines, until we found the perfect spot at the edge of the lake. Sweat equity.

And we fished. Sweat equity.

And I did things I never thought I would.

I learned how to tie hitch knots around hooks, put on a sinker, string a bobber, and untangle fishing line. When my son was grossed out by something, I powered through my own feelings of grossness and got it done.

Sweat equity.

You see, for me, you can’t be passive about love. Yes, grammatically it can be a noun or a verb, but the definition of the word requires that you put some sweat equity behind the verbal expression.

And despite being a 20-year veteran of copywriting as a profession, blogging countless stories, and writing articles, whitepapers, manuals, and campaigns… I honestly cannot find the words to describe completely how much I love my children.

Instead, I show how much I love them in the form of 4:30 a.m. wakeups, an egg and cheese breakfast burrito, hours googling fishing how-to tutorials, a long drive to the lake, mucking through the dirt and mud, sharing a beautiful foggy sunrise, baiting worms onto hooks, grasping wriggling fish in my hands and removing hooks, placing the keepers in a cooler, and tossing the others back into the lake to live another day.

Sweat equity.

And it was all worth it.

The excitement with that first catch of the day. My children’s decision to step outside their own comfort zone and try something new. My son winning a prize for the biggest catch of the day. Excited little voices video chatting with Daddy about what it was like to put a worm on the hook, reel in the fish, and all the gross things Mom did.

And I’d do it all again, kiddos. Sweat equity.

Tonight, I’m stepping out of my comfort zone once more. I’m putting more sweat equity behind those three little words. And as my children watch me, I know they see how much I love them.