I spent a good chunk of an afternoon recently replacing the flapper and fill valve on the toilet in our bathroom. The toilet had been running constantly for longer than I’d like to admit, replacement kits cost less than $20 and it’s supposed to be an easy fix. So when my husband asked if I knew how to do it, I said, “I’ve got YouTube. How hard can it be?” Friends, never ask, “How hard can it be?” That’s just tempting fate. It turned out that the YouTube videos I watched just said things like, “Remove the old flapper,” accompanied by someone basically reaching in and pulling it out in a second, maybe two. No advice for what to do when the old flapper has hardened to the point it won’t slip off nubs on the overflow tube. Pro tip: Sturdy scissors to cut the rubber. Then they said, “Remove the old fill valve.” That became the problem, as the nut on the bottom of the tank had shrunk, or the shaft of the old fill valve had expanded, enough that the nut wouldn’t turn without the help of a properly fitting wrench — and someone holding the shaft from the top, so it didn’t turn along with the nut at every turn of the wrench. I tried by myself for a long while, probably longer than I should have, then enlisted my husband’s help. Even with two of us, it took a while. After that? Installing the new flapper and fill valve took about 10 minutes, maybe 15 to account for filling time and a couple of test flushes. The toilet hasn’t run since. That’s the thing, though. Doing something new, acquiring new habits, can be really good. You can know it will be really good. You can even think it will be easy. You might even be right about that. The hard thing is getting rid of the old stuff, the stuff that has hung around so long it has calcified and more or less cemented itself into place. The older we get, the more of that stuff there is, and the more aware we are that when it comes to changing things out, nothing will be easy. There’s a reason it took us so long to fix the toilet. Now we’re at the start of a new year, when many people resolve to make new habits and, probably harder, break out of old ones. Want to spend more time with people you love? Want to play more with your kids? Want to build a better relationship with God? What’s holding you back? What are you doing instead? I’m not here to tell you it’s too hard and not to do it; I’m here to tell you that it’s a good idea to remember that letting go of the old is hard, and takes time. But if the new thing you want is really what you need, it will be worth it.
About the Author Michelle Martin is staff writer at Chicago Catholic. Contact her at [email protected].