Painting My Basement Office and Other Lessons in Life

We’ve lived in this house for six years and for most of that time I have wanted to paint the room we use as an office in the basement. Though it does have nice windows, the fake, dark paneling made the room somewhat unpleasing. After many starts and no finishes, I came to the acceptance that I was probably chromophobic. In all the houses I’ve tried to decorate since I’ve been married, all ended up painted in various shades of white. Don’t get me wrong, I love color and admire people with the courage to paint a room in rich bold shades. I can even imagine my rooms with accent walls, faux finishes, even dark colors with bright trim. Yet, whenever I try to choose a color, I get so overwhelmed and confused that in the end I pick the eggshell cream or vintage white. Recently, though, I had the misconception that “this time I can do it” and headed off to the hardware store. I knew I wanted beach colors. I wanted to feel like I was sitting out on the porch of a beach cottage. That should have been the clue for me: I wanted to FEEL the beach colors. However, I had yet to make that observation. Doug happened to be with me, and I tried to explain to him what I wanted as I struggled through the paint chips. I could not find what I wanted and I fought Doug at his every suggestion. All the paint chips laid out in chromatic shades just did not seem right. Luckily, I found a picture with the colors that felt right to me and Doug tried to find matching swatches. At one point he said to look for a blue with more red. This made absolutely no sense to me, blue was blue and red was red. To mix meant purple, or so, no pun intended, my black and white thinking was telling me. This is where I would normally get mad and tell him to forget the whole thing. But I wanted my beachy office space! I’m not sure when the revelation hit, but it finally dawned on me, I wasn’t looking for a color; I was looking for a feeling. Doug found several paint chips that were closest to the picture and we brought home small sample bottles of paint. Though still not the same as seeing the entire room done, the squares of color now on my wall make it a little easier for me to see which one will be right for this room and has eased my fear of picking a color, somewhat.

Picking paint color wasn’t the only problem. For years I would see things, do things, write things or make observations that made perfect sense to me, but not to anyone else it seemed. There was the time I wrote a ‘cheer’ song for my youth group to the tune of a popular song, or the banner I designed for a rally. They were perfect expressions of what I wanted to say or show, yet no one else thought they were “right.” At the time I thought it was that they didn’t like me, as it seemed that every suggestion I would make would be met with much opposition. I can’t say it did much for my ego. One of my freshman college roommates would always make comments about how I choose to dress and I decided she was just a fashion snob. Then there was the time I insisted that a particular celebrity could be the identical twin to a relative of mine and no one else saw the resemblance. My husband and I would go out shopping and I’d pick out the perfect accessory to match some furnishing we owned and he’d say it doesn’t match at all. Knowing that sometimes it isn’t worth the hassle of arguing with me, he’d let me bring it home and wasn’t even obnoxious about it when the color was so way off I really wondered what I was thinking. Left me kind of wondering what was ‘real’ and what wasn’t.

Then there is my face recognition issue. I just figured I wasn’t good with faces. I could see my doctor’s receptionist a hundred times, yet wouldn’t know her if we bumped into each other in the grocery store. But that was common, wasn’t it? I also had a hard time remembering what people looked like. I have a heck of a problem trying to keep characters straight in movies unless they had some outstanding physical difference. A movie about the 50’s and early 60’s when all men had short, slicked back hair and black rimmed glasses were especially difficult for me. And forget remembering who our server was at a restaurant. As with my celebrity look alike assumption, I guess faces didn’t register in the correct way for me. This just added to the distrust of my own observations. Sure didn’t help me feel confident to make decisions based on these observations.

When our recent paint picking episode showed me that I observe feelings and not what is actually represented, I think I finally figured it out. I ‘see’ and ‘hear’ the feelings that are provoked in me, or that I try to provoke in others. Since how anyone feels differs from one individual to another, a color choice, a face, or words in a song can illicit different “truths” to each individual. So I may not be wrong, as my “truth” is just a valid as anyone else’s, but it does make it more complicated! When people look alike to me, it is the similarity I see, not in facial features, but in their emotions, confidence, and their sense of self. I don’t see the blue dress with the Peter Pan collar someone is wearing; I see the flowing skirt, the graceful stance of the wearer and the pleasing color. I will see the casual self confidence of a button down shirt, not the expense of its Italian origin or the mass production of a Wal-Mart brand.

People decorate and paint their rooms every day, but for me, it became a wonderful lesson and helped ease 53 years of never knowing if it was me, or everyone else, off kilter!