During this past week, I spent four days trapped in our daughter’s room. I accepted the challenge to repaint the room – changing it from a little girl’s room to that of an older, more mature, young lady. It happened. She looked at me a month ago and asked for me to change her room. She was ready to grow. I was not. Yet, I accepted the challenge and completed it.
The funny thing about being trapped in a room for four days is that you get a lot of time to think. So many things came through my head. I figured out how to kill a character or two in the current murder mystery I am writing. Then I had to figure out the clues left behind for the detectives. This guy is tricky so I am still working that. Once I stopped writing in my head, I let my thoughts wander. That’s when I realized that painting really lends itself to lessons about life. Here is just some of the ramblings that went through my head.
The first lesson I learned is that nothing in life is quite as easy as it seems. When our daughter first asked me to take on the task, I thought about the painting I did last summer of the living room and dining room. It has large open walls with a few corners and open ceiling. I also was using the same colors. I thought that was easy; how hard can this be? HA! I did not think about the fact that I had sky blue on the ceiling and hand-painted cartoon characters on the wall. The fact that she wanted stripes didn’t seem so bad. I forgot that the closet was open so that walls turned a number of times. I forgot about the taping, scraping, spackling, and cleaning. I didn’t think about moving furniture back in forth in a little room. As I started tackling the jobs, I thought about how this really matched life. So often we agree to do things without really looking at how much of a commitment it will really take. This job reminded me of many times in my past when things were presented to me much like I looked at the painting. It will be an easy, not much time needed job. I learned, or was reminded, that when I look at taking on new jobs, I really need to make sure that I really know the commitment I am promising.
The next lesson that kept coming up time and time again is that you cannot quit once you have started. You need to see things through to the end. There were so many times in those four days that I wanted to stop and yell defeat. I know a number of people who do painting on the side, and I could have offered any one of them a job. Yet, our daughter was depending on me to finish the job. At the end of each day, my body was sore (I am sure anyone who has painted a house would agree). I went through a shirt a day which can now only be used for work around the house. I finished the second coat on the ceiling only to see half blue and half yellow and felt as if this job would never be done. Throughout it all, I had a little one watching the progression of the job. She saw me complete each task. I need her to see me complete the job as a lesson that you never quit (Okay – you can quit some things). This job actually reminded me as I get ready to head back to work from a few weeks off of the tasks waiting for me. It gave me the strength to go back and have the same attitude. I hope our daughter takes away the same.
Painting this room by myself taught me how much better life is with a partner. Normally when I start at a job of this size, my wife jumps right into the mix with me. She is normally there by my side helping – not so this time. My wife was only a couple of days into her recovery from her second knee replacement surgery. While she wanted to be able to help, it would have been a little scary to see her using a walker while on a ladder. However, it is not just in painting that I truly appreciate my wife being my partner. I often thought about how much easier things could be with the right partner by my side. I made sure to say right partner because our daughter did try to come in and help. I allowed her to try. I helped her learn how to paint, and we worked together. I went back over those areas after she left. You don’t want just anybody to be your partner, it has to be the right person. Doing this by myself made me realize just how much my wife means to me. She is that right partner. I missed her on this project and am so thankful she is by my side in all other endeavors.
The last lesson, that I will share, is that it is hard being the parent of an only child. Back in
January, I wrote about the Single Child Syndrome. Now I am looking at it from the viewpoint of the parent. Single children deal with a different world since they do not grow up having to deal with siblings. They must learn all of the social skills through interacting with friends. I believe parents of these children also must deal with situations unlike those of multi-children parents. I am the youngest of four – not only are their four boys in my family, but the time span between births is only 4 years 8 months. I think by the time I was ready to grow and move through different mile stones, my parents were happy just to be done with another one. I think there was little sentimentality in my walking, my talking, my being ready to move to the next phase. I also think that as my brothers moved through the phases, my parents were too busy running herd over us to be sentimental. Since we only have one child, these moves through stages hit hard.
When our daughter came to me to ask for the painting, it came out as…”Daddy. I want to change my room. I am too old to have Ariel on my wall. Can you paint over them?” I asked her to think about it. “I have. I need a room for a grown-up girl.” There would be no talking her out of this. She was ready whether I was or not. I was not. I started thinking about it, and this seems to be a June/July thing. Each summer she announces another big change and how she is ready to be more grown-up. I believe that it has something to do with preparing for the next grade in school.
So I accepted her wishes. I walked into her room and looked at the cartoon characters that have been on her wall since before she was born. Ariel and Flounder over her bed. Pooh greeting her as she entered. Tigger reading a book behind her dresser. I stood looking at each. Remembering. I remembered walking a baby into this room and showing her each character. I remember walking the room at two in the morning with a crying child showing her each one hoping to get her to calm down. I remember rocking her as she was fed and making silly voices so that she could hear her friends talk. Then there were the stars and planets to come off the ceilings. Stars which held her wishes. Now they fall so that I can paint over the sky and sun. This job made me accept that our daughter was growing no matter how much we wanted her to stay young. Time moves forward and our daughter is skipping down the road of the future.
So with paint brush in hand, the sky and sun disappeared. The radio actually played Here Comes the Sun with the first brush of paint. The roller moved over Tigger and I heard Cat’s in the Cradle. It was more than just the music tugging at my heart-strings. But paint over them I did. The characters kept showing up. More paint to remove her childhood, but nothing can remove my memories.
So now the job is done. She has a room set-up for a pre-pre-teen. It has taught me about myself and about her. I will take my lessons with me as I move on to the next project either at home or work. I will look at our daughter differently. She is still young – just not as young as she was yesterday. She wants to grow-up. While we will make sure that that doesn’t happen too fast, we will need to let it happen. She will always be my little girl. However, now that Tigger, Pooh, Ariel, and Flounder do not greet me when I step into her room, I find that I am ready to walk with her into the next phase of her life. I am excited to see where it takes us. I fear that this part of her life will be over all too soon. I will enjoy it while I can.
So that is what I learned from painting a room. Thank you for meandering with me tonight.