On coloring inside the lines, and marital expectations.
I've always enjoyed drawing and painting. I remember when I was little, I would always start my pictures by creating outlines of the shapes - trees, flowers, houses, horses, faces, whatever. Outlines first, then shading and color. I would come to a moment in the process where I would feel conflicted about whether or not I wanted to go on. Usually, that inner debate started right after I finished the outlines. I wondered, if I kept going, would I ruin the picture? It seemed like often, the outlined piece looked better before I went in and "finished" it. It was a gamble every time, and I lost as often as I won.
I was thinking about what went wrong with my marriage the other day (really I think about it almost every day), and the outline/color conflict appeared, apparently at random, in my mind. After some thought, I realized it sheds a surprising amount of light on the situation. You see, the reason you I get stuck after I do all the outlines is because at that moment, the piece has the potential to be colored and shaded PERFECTLY. The image is there, it's recognizable, and my mind can supply all the details and nuances I could possibly want, each one just right. Once I actually put pigment to paper, however, the possibilities of what the piece will finally look like get narrower and narrower, until finally it's done, and it looks however it looks. The outlines have, perhaps, exerted more influence over the picture than I planned. When it was just outlines, it looked like what I wanted, but maybe finishing the piece exposes that the outlines weren't quite right. Then it looks wrong and it's too late to fix it.
Now I'll get to the marriage part. See, what I think happened there (among many other things) is that we decided to get married when we had an outline in our minds of what marriage would be. The image was there, it was recognizable, but it was not detailed or nuanced. And, compelled as we were by the passage of time to add these details and nuances, we ended up with something that looked all wrong. Maybe the analogy fails for you; it is strikingly poignant for me.
The silver lining here, the lesson, is to do my coloring before my outlines. If there's a next time, I hope I'll remember to explore the relationship completely, color in all the colors and shade all the shades, before deciding the picture looks like a marriage. I hope I'll see it for what it is, rather than what I want it to be. I hope the outlines will be little more than an afterthought on a picture that's easily recognizable to anyone, before it's officially defined.
I was thinking about what went wrong with my marriage the other day (really I think about it almost every day), and the outline/color conflict appeared, apparently at random, in my mind. After some thought, I realized it sheds a surprising amount of light on the situation. You see, the reason you I get stuck after I do all the outlines is because at that moment, the piece has the potential to be colored and shaded PERFECTLY. The image is there, it's recognizable, and my mind can supply all the details and nuances I could possibly want, each one just right. Once I actually put pigment to paper, however, the possibilities of what the piece will finally look like get narrower and narrower, until finally it's done, and it looks however it looks. The outlines have, perhaps, exerted more influence over the picture than I planned. When it was just outlines, it looked like what I wanted, but maybe finishing the piece exposes that the outlines weren't quite right. Then it looks wrong and it's too late to fix it.
Now I'll get to the marriage part. See, what I think happened there (among many other things) is that we decided to get married when we had an outline in our minds of what marriage would be. The image was there, it was recognizable, but it was not detailed or nuanced. And, compelled as we were by the passage of time to add these details and nuances, we ended up with something that looked all wrong. Maybe the analogy fails for you; it is strikingly poignant for me.
The silver lining here, the lesson, is to do my coloring before my outlines. If there's a next time, I hope I'll remember to explore the relationship completely, color in all the colors and shade all the shades, before deciding the picture looks like a marriage. I hope I'll see it for what it is, rather than what I want it to be. I hope the outlines will be little more than an afterthought on a picture that's easily recognizable to anyone, before it's officially defined.