YouTube Video: How to Prime and Repaint a Room https://youtu.be/4EBdZdtFf2U
I recall when our daughters had plans to repaint their rooms. Although both in their “tweens, they were both too young to simply do the painting of the walls. I knew it was my given opportunity to take part in this vision and plan both separately requested. While this could have been easily a mother and daughters project, I have always subconsciously felt it was my thanks to God to gift my children my time and talent. In my mind, they were my honorary guests in my life and I wanted to do nothing more, but give them my sole best. Perhaps I could have involved them during the priming and painting process, but with like everything else, I always put it upon myself to do the heavy work so they could enjoy the fruits of my labor. I did not even want my husband to take part in this one. I selfishly wanted to do this for my daughters alone.
So, there I was, taking our daughters to the nearest Home Improvement store so they could choose their colors. The older one wanted a rainbow on one of the four walls. The other walls would simply have blue with some overlapping white clouds-easy. However, a rainbow consists of 6-7 colors (ROYGBIV). If it were up to me, I would have easily gone to the AS IS mis-tinted paint area to get whatever color looked relatively close to what I would have in mind. Those usually cost under $10, a fraction of the cost of custom-selected paint. However, it had already been some time where I could feel that I was losing that sparkle in both my daughters’ eyes that used to look up at me with so much admiration. It could have been a simple meal or a help with a craft and they’d look at me as if I had turned on my superpower to make their day the best they ever had.
As time went on, however, I felt I was simply running out of that “superpower”. I remember how, one night, my growing oldest daughter before my very eyes spoke the following words as I came to sit next to her bed as my normal nightly routine went, “Mom. You don’t need to sing to me anymore.” I think I managed to complete our prayer that night as I held myself together to kiss her goodnight. I finished off with our youngest daughter with the same routine, my last lullabies sung to both. I stopped altogether the lullabies thereafter.
I remember many years later my youngest daughter questioning why I had stopped singing to them their lullabies and I laughingly recalled that it was her older sister, sitting nearby at that time, who brought it to my attention that they were getting too old for the lullabies. Little did my youngest daughter (nor my oldest) know that my oldest daughter’s words had crushed my spirit altogether for me to keep on with just one. It was not to their fault. When I look back, I realize now I just didn’t handle time and change well. I should have kept singing to my younger daughter until she, too, would request I stop. Maybe I felt that since the sparkle was starting to inevitably disappear, I could beat it to the punch- literally.
Here was my chance to redeem myself (question mark) ? So, a rainbow it was going to be, one color at a time. The younger wanted white polka dots and stripes with a lime-green background. The white paint was the only color that I could essentially use as a “2-for-1”, the clouds around the rainbow for one room with the polka-dots and stripes for the second room. This frugal mom never spent so much for paint, but I could feel my daughters’ excitement- no cost was going to talk me out of their joy!
Painting their rooms gave me that moment back where I felt that they not just needed me, but wanted me back in their lives. And in a silly way, perhaps I was telling myself that if I did “this” well, the sparkle in their eyes that was all it took to feed my heart’s fire inside would come back just once more.
I did get that sparkle back once I finished both rooms. I was even happier to see that they had added their personal touches to the other walls following my part. Those rooms were perfect in my eyes. Not because I had anything to do with helping my daughters complete a project once again. It was more that each time I looked at those walls, I saw their faces looking right back at me, sparkly eyes and all.
It is not easy to let go of something you recall putting so much love and care into doing beyond reasons your children would never need to understand. However, I had to brace myself and well, learn to let go. The rainbow soon disappeared following my daughter’s departure to greater things. The lime-green paint along with the polka-dots and stripes also had to go once our youngest son’s action figures and toy guns could no longer hold together a blend of existence when he moved into that room.
You can see a glimpse of this “release” on this YouTube video, How to Repaint a Room. This time, I had my husband help me. I am okay if I don’t get the “sparkles” anymore. My superpower? Still got it- unconditional love for my children. I will just have to continue to battle it out with Time and Change.
