For Mother’s Day I asked for one thing – an adult colouring book. I imagined myself sitting and relaxing, colouring to give my eyes and mind a break from the little screens that can draw me in. Rather than checking Pinterest or Instagram for the one-thousandth time, I would fill pages with colour. Instead of consuming, I would create.
The boys willingly fed this wish and gave me my own book titled Fantastic Cities with a sleeve of pencil crayons from Indigo.
Let the head games begin. Since each of the pictures drawn is of an actual city, where actual people live and visit every day these buildings and landscape actually exist. I can colour this all wrong!
Manhattan. My first colouring page finished.
Someone could say of my colouring “Oh that is not what that looks like.” or “I thought you had been to Paris before, shouldn’t you know that is not what it looks like?” After I accidentally let my pencil go too far and began colouring the side of a building the same colour as the roof, I was so embarrassed that I could not discern the difference in all these fine lines between roof and side.
This is happening at our full homeschooling desk. Books piled up around us as I sit beside J who is working on his writing literacy sentences. Right beside the boy whom I have just repeatedly told that morning
“Just do your best. It does not need to be perfect.”
I do the colouring so I can be beside him, supporting him, ready to help but while restraining my perfectionism and impatience from pouring over into him.
Then as I want to go look for another type of colouring book to order, one that is not of a real place and not too flowery, I get the slightest whisper reminding me that this is exactly what I am in a battle against.
The battle against the gremlins that tell me that I am not good enough.
The need to please others rather than having fun and doing my best. I stop myself and ask the questions “Who are you showing these pictures to?” “Is there some adult-colouring contest you were trying to win?” “Who are you trying to please?” “What is the point of all this?”
My shoulders relax. I encourage J once more that perfection is not the goal, excellence towards a goal is.
Do your best with what you have for what you are doing.
And I colour a building in Paris purple.
If this struggle sounds familiar, please leave a comment or get in touch. I also highly recommend reading Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection.
Cindy
June 1, 2016 at 2:21 pmThose darn gremlins. Tell yourself that it is a limited mind which dictates the colours of walls, and limit’s the planes between wall and roof. It is only prudent to stay between the lines when you drive!
Lisa
June 1, 2016 at 3:15 pmCindy, That is so great, especially coming from an artistic person such as yourself!! Thanks for the encouragement.