How long can something go undone? It all depends, my friend. It all depends…
Is it in your sight line? Is it easily avoidable? Have you become numb to its unfinished character even though somewhere, in the recesses of your mind it might wake you up in the middle of the night or two or three?
We are a people of unfinished business. We each have our zones of completion and we each have our deep dark box of unfinished projects. Pray your’s come in rubbermaid totes somewhere on a shelf in a basement and not by way of unanswered phone calls, forgiveness unsought and forgiveness ungranted.
I have all of it. I’ve been working through my list of unfinished business piece by piece and bit by bit since March. Oh, don’t get me started on making a couple records and allowing them to gather cobwebs….oof.
How do you eat the elephant, class? One. bite. at a time. That’s what I’m doing with the easy stuff (“That girl looks like she could use a win” ) and the hard stuff (“that girl needs to know she is strong enough to do hard stuff and feel uncomfortable”). On Saturday, after cleaning the kitchen and while two of the boys were off at a Boy Scout Day camp, I decided to tackle the unfinished job of this tiny corner of my kitchen.
Why? Because now is as good a time as any. Why? Because living with dissatisfaction, even dissatisfaction of my own making is detrimental to the greater calling.
There I was, cleaning my countertops, dusting the windowsill, tackling the forgotten pile of mail and newsletters and whispering to myself, “I am making space for the next big thing.” All the while ignoring the incomplete corner paint job I had put off since getting the kitchen fixed up back in February. Isn’t that interesting? Being all gung ho about setting the stage for a bigger energy and, at the same time, not addressing the thing that’s been nagging at me for months and months? Isn’t the human brain a fascinating, frustrating thing to behold?
So, after cleaning my kitchen top to bottom, I decided to tackle the project. No more unfinished business. No more half-done/close enough type settling for something that does not point to how I’d like to order life.
Our brains are picking up signals all the time. Signals like, “It doesn’t matter.” “Who cares?” “It can wait.” In my case, those messages, after years and years of being normal, have now become unacceptable.
It does matter whether or not I am diminishing my own desires. Especially when it’s as simple as bringing up the paint from storage, taping off the area, priming and painting and hanging my new favorite poster. You’d think something so small would be no big deal, but it turns out neglecting small stuff points to a trend of neglecting stuff. I’m not into that anymore. The way I chose to express my desire to finish things was caring enough about this corner nook that I was willing to take the afternoon to finish what had been left undone.
Isn’t home improvement sexy? No, not all. Isn’t a corner paint job a sign of something bigger than just a thing on our list of jobs? Oh heck yes. When I thought about it, it was a sign pointing to “Your work is never done” the kitchen is only ever partially at rest because of this neglected corner. I can have some nice things, but not all nice things and the thing I want the most (peace, for example) is forever out of my reach. It may have even been a prideful sign saying, “see? I am not someone so high maintenance as to have a kitchen that I love.” or “See? I am so so so so busy and to prove my busyness, I have these unfinished projects as a badge of my true urgent need to be elsewhere all the time.”
Now it’s finished. Not perfect, but finished and it has given me the gift of an exhale. When I look at that corner I now have the gift of satisfaction and satisfaction doesn’t feel like a temptation luring me into lazyness. It feels like an invitation to be at peace and be in comfort (ya know, as much as a kitchen corner can offer, I mean, come on).
Be kind to yourself. Call that guy and have him fix that thing. Clear your schedule and trust you’re worth it to take a whole weekend caring for yourself by caring for unfinished things. The exhale waiting on the other side of it holds a huge amount of peace that will carry you a very long way. Have a great day, everyone.