Painting and Procrastination

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted a house with a window seat. The idea of sitting there, curled up with a book and a cup of tea, sounds like perfection. Unfortunately, I’ve never lived in a house that had room for a window seat. There are no bay windows in my single-story mid-century modern house and to be honest, no nooks or crannies at all.

But I’m a grown up now and it turns out that means if I really want it so bad, I can build a window seat in my house, architecture be damned. And by build it myself I mean that I can ask Forrest very nicely to build a window seat for me and then, after many months of hemming and hawing, he will do it for me.

Now, it’s fully built and ready for the last step: I need to paint it. We’re making it white to match the trim and I do a lot of painting around here, so I’ve got plenty of primer and trim paint left over, not to mention my trusty mini roller and angled brush. All I need to do now to fulfill a decades long dream is actually paint it.

It’s been two weeks and I haven’t even touched a paintbrush. Until yesterday, I told myself that I was working on manuscript revisions, significant ones, and so I really couldn’t take a day off. But I finished those and sent them on. Then I immediately, stood up, stretched and went and stared at the project I’ve been putting off.

For those of you who have known me for a long time, this might be surprising. I am the opposite of a procrastinator. The idea of having something hang over my head is so unbearable that I cannot handle it, not even for an hour. If something comes across my desk, I just get up and do the project. Not because it’s the right time, or because I like the satisfaction of finishing something I started, but because I can’t rest until it’s done.

But as I age, I’ve realized that that impulsivity doesn’t lead to a job well done. It just leads to a job done. Sometimes procrastination makes sense. Not in a putting it off forever kind of way, but as a signal that there’s something missing. Maybe we need more information on how to complete a task. Maybe we don’t feel competent enough and need more instruction. Maybe we don’t have the supplies we need and aren’t really being honest that getting the supplies is a task in and of itself. Maybe we don’t really think that the task needs doing or we resent that we’re the one who needs to do it or we think it’s a waste of time.

Emotions, even emotions like disinterest or lack of motivation, are good signals that there’s something else going on. Sometimes I know what that something else is, but often, I have to dig deeper. I could berate myself into ignoring that, just do the job, but like I said, there are a lot of good reasons we might be pausing on a project.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about productivity. When I was younger, I felt like I wasn’t particularly good at much, but I could outwork any failings I might have had. There was no problem or project I couldn’t take care of, as long as I had enough caffeine. And then I had kids, when productivity is basically forced on you. With three kids under four, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for rest.

But that’s over now. I mean, I still have kids, but they’re big and they do half the chores around here and they’re gone at school or sports or friends’ houses and for the first time in a long time, I could choose not to be productive. Or not as productive anyway. Dinner’s still got to be made.

And unlike my younger self, caffeine just isn’t doing it anymore. And I don’t want to talk to myself the way I used to - I think about the words I used to say to get myself moving: “Don’t be lazy.” “God, I’m such a slacker.” “Not going to get anywhere sitting on the couch.”

I would never say those words to my kids. And I would never allow anyone else to. That might make you think that I'm indulgent, but they would disagree. I have high standards for them, but we don’t talk like that around here. I have high standards for me, too. But maybe those standards are less about doing lots of things, and more about doing the right things well. Productivity doesn’t really factor into that equation, does it?

And that right there is the deeper reason why I’m not painting that window seat right now. It’s my first time painting unfinished wood and I want to do it right. Which means I need to sand and prime and sand and paint and maybe sand and paint again. And that will take a long time, and be disruptive to the whole house and I know that it will be an utter pain in the neck. But this project means something to me. I want to do it well.

So, I suppose I’m going to trust that if I pick a day and clear my schedule and cross my fingers it’s nice enough to paint and trust that the motivation will follow. And maybe then I can make my dreams come true, even little ones like window seats.