Losing myself

Yesterday evening I walked into my temporarily empty former guest room. I took the new paint and poured it into the tray. I took my paint roller and sopped it up good and full of paint. I began to roll the new calm, sage green color onto the walls. A nice neutral color that I'm sure guests (in the next few months before the baby is born) will appreciate. A very good color for a guest room or a nursery. A color that matches the rest of our house and I'm sure will be easier to pawn off on buyers at resell time. A color that I love and that I surely could have picked for this room in the first place. This room that had been a guest room only out of need. The room that was my creative center for quilting projects and inspiration. The room that I had painted an in-your-face bright ass green because it made me feel alive and awake whenever I walked in. A color that made guests give me strange looks like maybe I was a little crazy and hadn't realized my walls could easily be featured in Crayola. A color that struck me as standing proud even when people wondered why it was wearing that shirt, or dancing that dance or singing that song. A color that respected others but knew it was the best it could possibly be. A color that had worked hard for her achievements and had been successful. A color that knew it was well loved by some and that was more important than being liked by all. A color that was me. A color that was the me that not everyone sees.

I'm so in love with the thought of this amazing little child of mine, growing in my belly to be this unknown amazing person. But painting those walls was the first time I realized that parts of me will be lost in this little one. I'm happy to bring this life into the world, but I am sad to be losing a part of me - me that I have worked so hard to become.

So I covered up my bright-ass in-your-face green walls. I smothered them in mother, in love, in nature.