It can be nerve-wracking waiting for paint to dry. Your careful planning matching shades of paint swatches to your comforter and furniture, all the dadgum prep work…taping for what seems like days and days…
When that fresh coat of paint is applied you realize it’s not the color you thought it was. The shade is off just enough it doesn’t match what you tried so hard to get. The undertone’s too gray, or too purple…something’s just not quite right. You know it’s what you’re supposed to have because the swatch matched perfectly. You looked at it in natural light, yellow light…all the possible lights that could be used in that room. You gave it to the professional to color the paint just right. But on your wall, it fails to meet expectation.
As I’ve been painting, I can’t help but feel the anxiety of my project. I decided to paint vertical stripes (91 to be exact) in our bedroom. Working only during my son’s naps (usually too beat to work much in the evenings) it’s taken me about a week to paint two coats of the first color, then tape, tape, tape and more tape. I’m finally applying the first coat of the darker shade today. And it looks off. It doesn’t even go with the first color. The two swatches I got from the store were partners. My brain knows that wet paint is a different shade than when it dries. My eyes are telling me a different story, and my stomach agrees with anxiety.
As I try to calm my nerves (seriously, folks I’ve worked REAL hard for this not to work!), I try to think about how this applies to life and our journey. We are so much like that wet-paint:
Our ‘finish’ can change if someone brushes up against us at vulnerable times without thinking (or knowing) to help repair the damage. We need relationships to mold us and to support us. Even if that swipe that wasn’t meant to be isn’t resolved by the perpetrator, we still play out that hurt in other relationships until we learn to heal.
We’re rarely polished after that first try (paint usually requires 2-3 coats – even painter/primer I’m finding out).
In the process of paint being made until it dries on the wall, it’s as if to say God’s not done with us yet. God’s constantly working in us and through us.
In order for paint to be what we need it to be it must start as a clean slate then be mixed with experience, shaken, stirred, opened and made vulnerable to the workings of the artist (God), change shapes, and wait for all of these to come together to dry.
I have so many relationships that I think – ah, if I could just do this part over…or do the whole thing over. Or, if I saw that person now I could explain to them how I’ve changed or that I’m not that same person any more. But we don’t get the option of do-overs and rarely do we get to “prove” that we’ve changed. Our lives are wet paint. We’re not done. We’re not even the shade that we could be juuuust yet. Those past experiences we desire to change are just us being shaken, stirred, opened and made vulnerable.
The wet paint idea can be applied to life in general and it can also be applied to various circumstances. My life has been a myriad of opportunities trying to figure out “what I want to be when I grow up.” Never have I been able to answer that with 100% certainty. I feel pressure of being identified by what you do. I want an identity! But I don’t want it to be defined by what I do for a job. I’m a paint of various shades. I really like doing sooo many things, it’s hard for me to settle on one. As I searched for “what I’m supposed to be” I tried on different hats. Wait, paint doesn’t wear hats. Hmm…different analogy needed here. I tried out different tones…??...I can’t help but think about a chameleon here. There’s a negative connotation there I don’t want. I’ll have to work on a better analogy. For now, just go with a blob of paint wearing a hat. I have had some friends support me through each of these ventures, some of the ventures, or none of the ventures. I’m trying a couple new things that for once I feel great about. Yea, it can be difficult when I don’t feel the support from certain people…but what’s important is that I’m finding the validation within. The paint isn’t dry yet. People will come around (or they won’t). What’s important is knowing that I’m just the right shade I need to be right now in this process.
I’ve always been a fan of Weird Al. It was a tradition to listen to his parodies as we drove the 8 hours every summer to get to church camp. He never sang about drugs or sex and he never cursed. Good, clean fun J He’s recently come out with a children’s book that speaks to my heart. It’s about an eight-year-old boy that’s answering the question of what he wants to be when he grows up. The moral of Al’s story is that we shouldn’t be defined by what we do for a living. The important thing is to find something you love and THEN try to make a living out of it. This will be a staple in my house. “The Journey is the Destination (Tom’s Shoes).”
Waiting for paint to dry can be a beautiful thing not only as I anticipate the outcome of honest effort, but of the effort itself.
