a metaphor

Week One

We found a house, a simple 4-room house with huge windows, one we both feel connection to, one we both feel drawn too. You see the potential, but I’m pretty hesitant. But of course, once you walk me through, and show me what you see, I love it. The walls in all the rooms are bleach white. There is no energy there, we know we can fill it. We both see the possibilities. We will paint it together, room by room. If we mess up, we’ll start over. If we don’t like what we see, we’ll repaint it. If we get tired, we’ll rest. But we will start to paint. It’s not going to be easy, it takes time.

Week Two

We start to paint. You choose a shade of blue, and I choose a bright shade of yellow. They look strange separate, but together, they create the most beautiful green. We don’t discuss it, we don’t plan it, it just becomes the most unbelievable shade of green that we have ever seen. It makes us feel peaceful, fulfilled, free, amazed, and complete. We paint the first wall together, it is perfection – not only because the colors come together so well – but because we painted it together.

It’s hard to get finished though, because we can’t paint all the time. We have other obligations: work, family, friends. Nevertheless, we start on the second wall. But then your arm starts to hurt, I find you a cast. But it isn’t strong enough. You say you need to rest, to recover. I don’t want to stop painting, but don’t want to paint without you. So we stop.

Week Three

Your arm feels better, but you don’t want to paint in our room for awhile. You want to paint a room on your own. You think that we should each paint a room of our own. So we do. We each paint one wall in our own rooms. You think your room looks good, I don’t like mine – it looks OK, because I keep looking back, comparing it to “our” room, it just isn’t what I want. You check up on me every once in awhile. Every once in awhile, you ask for my help and I come and help you with your room.

However, I keep going back to our room, hoping that you’ll be there painting. But I don’t see you. Meanwhile, I see that you are always repainting your room, over and over again. So while I wait, I go to our room and I start painting alone, and I think that if I keep going with my color, that you can come back and add your color in when you’re ready and it will still be beautiful. So I paint, inch by inch. Sometimes when I come back after resting, I see that you’ve been there. I see that you have tried to help me finish that second wall in your own way, your own time. I feel so relieved, because it means that you still see the same beauty, feel the same unwavering connection. But, you never stay. You come and go. But it’s OK with me, because I can wait, as long as you are still painting little by little. Because though we’re painting separately in our own way, our amazing color is still the same.

Week Four

I go back in the room. There are two walls painted. But now the room looks strange. There is 1 complete wall, 1 not totally finished, and 2 bleach white ones. The room looks worse because it isn’t complete, looks irregular, not proportional. You seem to like it that way, but I need balance. I need to finish it. It becomes so hard for me to keep going back into the room because I feel sad that you don’t want to finish it as much as I do. I also start to wonder why we can’t paint together anymore, why do we have to paint separately? I still have hope, I still go back in every once in awhile, and try to paint a little on my own. Sometimes I see that you’ve been there. Sometimes I see that you haven’t been there in awhile. But I feel hurt, because I don’t think you care about our room anymore. Maybe I’m being selfish, only thinking of myself.

Week Five

I become desperate. I don’t want to paint alone, and I can’t understand why you don’t want to paint with me anymore. But, I never ask why. I never ask. I just thought it didn’t matter to you anymore. I can’t even finish my own room, because I can’t stop thinking about “our” room. But I never ask you. I don’t want to ruin your concentration on your own room. It’s OK, we have started this painting and if we don’t finish, it’s OK, at least we began together, created together, believed in the possibilities together. It’s still there, we can still look at it whenever we want. But as time goes by, it gets harder and harder to see the beauty of “our” color because it’s been so long since we painted together.

I’m still lonely. So I ask someone else to come and help me paint. I don’t want them in our rooms, so we start on the hallways, the ones that connect our rooms. Except, the colors they paint don’t look right. They’re dark, and they look weird, out of place. But the problem is that I can’t fix it, I can’t paint over it, I can’t repaint it. It’s so dark that no matter what I do, I can’t fix it. And I don’t know how to ask this person to leave and stop painting, I can’t blame them because I let them in, I gave them a brush, and let them paint in our house, foolishly.

Week Six

You see the hallway, and you’re angry. How could I let someone else into our house? But you still see the possibilities, you haven’t forgotten. You take a look at those dark hallways, and you know they can be fixed. They should be fixed, because they are only hallways, so the house is not ruined, because the rooms are still OK. As I watch you try to fix the hallway, I start to remember how wonderful it was to paint together. I hand you the brushes, the paints, I hold the ladder for you… so pleased that we are in the same part of the house again. You tell me that you want to go back to painting our room. You apologize for going to your own room for so long. You ask me why I didn’t tell you how lonely I was. Why didn’t I remind you to finish our room? Why did I ask someone else for help before asking you? I don’t know why. I get upset. You get angry. You don’t want to fix the hallway anymore. You want to leave it there. You don’t even want to be in the house anymore.

Everyone tells me to leave too. The house is not healthy. You will never help me paint those other rooms. Your own room is more important. They tell me that I will only be disappointed, hurt, burned. But, I don’t care.

Week Seven

We decide to try to get back to painting. Maybe we should get back to our own rooms, and then finish up the other hallways. But you don’t want to go back to “our” room anymore. It doesn’t look the same anymore, but you still want to work on the rest of the house. But it’s hard for me. I want to see the whole house finished, just so that we can see how we feel about the finished project. I know it won’t be perfect, but it will be “ours.” I keep walking past “our” room, so sad that I messed up, but not knowing what to do, it now has 1 beautiful complete wall, a half finished wall with both our colors, 1 wall of only my color and one bleach white wall.

No matter what, our house is still there. I want to live in it, whether it is finished or not. We have our own rooms, we have a room that we started together, and we still have one more empty room to paint. I will keep trying to fix that hallway. I will keep painting my own room. And I will be there to help you paint yours, no matter how many times you want to repaint it. But I can’t paint those other two rooms without you.