ArcaMax

Mercury Stardust visited my local library last weekend to talk about her New York Times No. 1 bestselling book "Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair." The TikTok star and "Trans Handy Ma'am" is a transgender woman and home repair expert who serves her video tutorials with a side of social justice and humor. I'm glad I got to learn more about her story just in time for Transgender Day of Visibility, which is celebrated each year on March 31.

Like many who inspire us, Stardust's story is one of resilience. She told the library audience about growing up a conservative kid on a farm while learning practical maintenance skills. As a young adult, she performed in cabaret and burlesque shows and applied her maintenance skills to home repair jobs to help her pay the bills. She'd fly out to Las Vegas, or wherever she was booked to perform on the weekend, and then fly the red-eye home on Sunday night to get back to work. "I'd not sleep for an entire day," she said, "and then by 6 o'clock in the morning, I'm plunging a toilet."

When asked what she would recommend for overcoming fear of DIY home repair, she said, "break something" -- and she wasn't kidding.

"We're conditioned to be, like, broken is bad," she said. "But, like, broken also means an opportunity to fix something, and I think that's fun."

For the times that broken really is bad, she quips, "those are the consequences of trying." It's not as if she's never experienced hardship. Stardust lost her mom when she was young, and she knows what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck. She even lived in her car for a time in 2016, arriving at job sites having to charge her drills and other tools on exterior outlets before she could get to work.

"You could have looked at me as a failure for 31 years," she said, but now thanks to her TikTok success, she said, "all the things I've learned from all those things that I broke come in handy." Now, she's helping others. Her videos help with practical tips and approaches to home repair while also supporting gender-affirming care, for which she has raised $4.5 million.

Stardust likes to challenge herself to do home repair jobs in different ways because one, she said, "hey, that's really fun," and two, it makes her other skills so much better. "There's definitely unsafe ways (to approach repairs)," she said, "but, like, there is no one right way."

Every job has at least two ways to go about it, so why not embrace the learning that must be done along the way? Stardust emphasized that you'll find approaches that will probably work a little better for you than others. Do the research and put in the time to see what you like. This sounds like great advice for home repair and for life.

There's no one right way to do home repair, and there's no one right way to live your life. However, legislators seem determined to define what it means to be an acceptable human according to their own narrow worldview. But each of us gets to figure out who we are and how we want to present ourselves to the world. Our homes are simply an extension of that. It's one more way we get to express ourselves.

We display what we value, and nowhere else are our personalities on display more than in our homes. We all need to take the time to get comfortable with our authentic self and then offer it as an expressive gift to the world. Mercury Stardust has it right. By encouraging people to have fun with the repairs in their homes, she helps us heal and tend to the repairs of our hearts.

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Do you know anyone who's doing cool things to make the world a better place? I want to know. Send me an email at Bonnie@WriterBonnie.com. Check out Bonnie's weekly YouTube videos at https://www.youtube.com/bonniejeanfeldkamp. To find out more about Bonnie Jean Feldkamp and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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