Thoughtz

Why is it that I love the look of messy collages and art journals on people's sites and yet mine are so constrained that they almost have chains around them.  Tho, chains about them would be a rather fanciful idea to do but I'm wandering.

So I look at these creations with splats of color and doodles drawn on top and some clever saying and would give my eye teeth to do something  like that.... but I can't.  I can't let go.  I wonder why not.  Why can't I just say the hell with it and get messy.  The craft room is messy, the table is in a deplorable state and yet... there the art journals or glue books or whatever you call them are so very prim and proper.  It was the same with decorating the rebuilt house.  I fussed and fretted and fretted and fussed for months to find just the right thing.

This morning the husband said that he agreed with me that the bathroom needed something and that something in his opinion was a Christmas scene decal that stretched along the length of the wall.  WHA?????

There is a decal along that same wall, down near the baseboard where I have gold fish swimming beneath a stretch of bumpy waves complete with drips and spurts.  It's a whimsical looking thing that always makes me laugh.  The decal is above but as i said, mine is on the wall.

So now we're supposed to put a Christmas scene above that?  I wanted to scream "NONONONONO" but instead I just walked away.  Trust me... there will be NO Christmas scene..

Before the fire... I know, there I go again.... I could have slapped any old thing up on any old spot and been happy with it.  Now I'm all matchy matchy and it makes me feel as if I am wearing wool underwear all itchy and scratchy.  I don't like matchy matchy and if I really do think about it, I think I now want my house done in a way and ADULT would do it instead of the little kid that has lurked inside of me. 

I don't know what to do about it.  Or if I should do anything at all.  I don't know which is the real me, the one who touches up splotches on the wall with the paint the contractors left or the me who would have ignored it or just slapped something over it.  I don't know which of the me I want to be either. 

I've had a sudden flash of insight.  Maybe I am now so matchy matchy because it would be tantamount to a SIN to spoil those lovely bright walls or to clutter those lovely counters or ding a bit of woodwork.  It would be as if I didn't appreciate the beauty around me now after all those years with paneling on the wall, scarce sunlight and things falling slowly apart.  Cabinet drawers that were always crooked no matter how many times I tried to fix the thing they ride along, the thing that always went cockeyed again within a week.  Some kind of odd stucco like something that was peeling away from the kitchen light fixture that I had no idea how to repair.  Shower doors that no longer rolled, windows that rattled, floors that creaked, wall to wall carpet that was pulled up from someone else house and put down in mine instead of taken to the land fill.  Furniture that didn't match and was on its last legs.  SO now I should APPRECIATE what I have and keep it perfectly.  But I suspect it isn't the real me and maybe until I can reconcile myself to the fact that this is home with all its color and light and I can do things that aren't so perfect, I really won't be at ease.  I'll keep expecting someone to show up for an inspection and find me lacking. 

Lacking when I am expected to be perfect.  Something that will never happen.  No matter what.