Months ago, while decorating for a party, I made a mistake. I decided to use duct tape to hold up some of the decorations on the wall! DUCT tape. I knew it was bad idea. I knew (mostly because, let's just be real, I have done this before! Give me a break, I'm a slow learner!)..anyway, I knew that it would most likely remove the paint from the wall when I took it down! But, at the time, it was a chance I was willing to take to accomplish what I wanted. I was short on time and big on ideas. I wanted what I wanted. I thought, I'll be careful, I'll only put a little, I won't push it down hard, and I'll remove it slowly. I had a plan. But, you know what? Dumb ideas don't care what our plans are!
When it came time to remove those pieces of duct tape, my mistake was glaringly obvious. Yes, the paint came off with the tape. I had open, ugly marks on my wall that screamed "SHE MADE A STUPID MISTAKE!"
Now, one of the reasons this was so stupid was because this wall was this color when we moved in, and we do not have any touch up paint!
But, I had another plan. COVER IT UP! I would peel the paint pieces off the tape and glue them back to the wall! It would cover up the blemish. At some point we are planning to repaint these walls, so it doesn't have to be a long term fix. Well, if you ever wondered, you can't glue paint chips back onto a wall. It worked for a while, but they kept falling off. One day I think I accidentally vacuumed them up! Or the dogs ate them? Who knows. All I knew was that I hated the reminder each day of what I done. The reminder of my choice for a quick fix.
So, new plan. DISGUISE IT and HIDE IT! On one wall the section missing was rather large and I had already planned to hang home decor there anyway, so I went ahead and strategically hung wall decor so no one would notice my blemish! The other wall, though, the smaller blemish was in a much harder area. It would look funny if I hung something there. It would almost call more attention to the spot. It would just make it weird.
But, then, inspiration struck! What do I use to hide blemishes on my face? Makeup! I suddenly thought, it would be easy to mix colors to dab on that spot and camouflage the blemish! So that's what I did! And it worked! For while...
Tonight, I looked at the missing paint, where my disguise is starting to wear off, and I sighed. I thought, I really just need to set aside the time and do the hard work of sanding it and it's ugly friends down and then repaint the whole room.
Suddenly, I was struck by this thought: Mistakes in life are a lot like this.
We do something that we know we shouldn't do. We have seen the results before of rash decisions. We know the same actions won't yield different results. But we want what we want, when we want it, so we do it anyway.
Then it comes time to make it back like it was.
But the damage has already been done and the blemish is already there.
So we panic. And we get mad at ourselves, because, darn it, we knew better! And we fret. And then we try to cover it up and go on like it never happened. We keep gluing that piece back in place. But those broken pieces just keep falling back off. Because they're broken and cannot be glued back on. It's a temporary fix. Our mistake just will not let us pretend it was never done.
So, next plan... we try to disguise it, and hide it. We focus on our attention on excelling at other things, being the "decor" that will never let anyone see behind to the blemish our good ways are hiding. And the ones we can't hide, we disguise. We maybe admit a little bit...like, "yeah, there's a spot there, but it's only small and I'm taking care of it, and it's really not that bad..."
But, those spots on our hearts just keep coming back to the surface. And, much like with my wall, we know that the only thing that will truly make that spot right again is to do the hard work. Put the time and effort into it. We have to get rid of the rough edges. We have to completely expose the mistake. If we don't know how to sand and fill and smooth out that mistake, we need to ask for help. We need to make sure someone experienced will look at the mess on the wall of our heart and be able to tell us exactly what tools we'll need and exactly how to do it. Sanding down a spot like that is hard work. We have to make it bigger first in order to smooth it out. Just when you think you have it all leveled, you may have go back and work at it again. Often, this means getting help from a fresh pair of eyes. You need someone who can look objectively and tell you if your heart is level or not. You need a friend, or a confidant...or a therapist!
Sometimes sanding it reveals other hidden cracks and holes, and sometimes other weak spots chip off. Just the thought of that makes me want to just leave that blemish there! It may be a hot mess but I'm terrified of the bigger mess cleaning it up may cause. But I can't ignore it. Pieces will eventually begin to chip off on their own. It will get weaker. And then the mess will be even harder to clean up.
If you make a mistake, and truly want to make it right, you have to do the hard work get to the root. You have to level it out. Clean out all the bad stuff. Once you finally, finally, get it all smooth, it's time to start over...time to paint it again. In this case, with my wall, I will need to paint the entire room. At the very least, you normally have to paint the entire wall, because the paint will fade over time and then that spot will still be noticeable, because it won't blend in. So, regardless, to truly make it better, you have to have a completely new, fresh coat of paint. You have to start from scratch. And you have to be willing to put the time and effort into making it ALL right again.
You have to do all of this to repair one little spot, one little mistake. All because of that thing you wanted. Isn't that sad?
What's even sadder, is that, really, that wall will never be the same. It will always have that sanded down spot. It will always be a little uneven. There will still be times when the light hits it just right and you will see the ramifications of that long ago choice.
But those brief moments can serve as reminders of why we should NOT make that same choice again. If we let it.
Or we can continue to make the same mistake over and over again, and keep trying to cover up all the evidence of our mistakes, until the room in our heart is a scarred and ugly, jagged mess that will take way, way longer to clean up.
So, self, remember...even small mistakes can have big consequences. And it can take a long time to correct it.
Which means, that quick decision that you know is wrong is really not worth it!
Stay away from quick fixes and things you know will end badly.
Just put down the Duct tape and walk away! Because you know better!
No comments:
Post a Comment