Tying It All Together

When decorating a room, or making any creation, sometimes one small piece has the power to tie it all together. When going through discouraging life experiences, it seems the same concept applies.

I'm not an interior designer, but I have an artistic eye -- and have had to redecorate vastly different spaces since I've moved frequently -- so I'm counting that as having some experience. I love staring at empty rooms and imagining all the possibilities, much in the same way as I do when I stare at a blank canvas.

Recently we moved from a small, hundred-year-old colonial-type house in Boston to a large, mid-century-modern-styled home in Seattle. My biggest design challenge yet was suddenly before me. The more cozy, vintage decor I'd previously embraced (which fell somewhere between rustic, farmhouse, and shabby chic) seemed out of place in our new, modern space. The thought initially really stressed me out. It wasn't the style I was familiar with, and it definitely wasn't my favorite.

That quickly changed. While there's a part of me that misses my more ornate, painted furniture (okay, it's not gone but mostly stashed away in my bedroom), I enjoyed the process of finding a mid-century-modern fusion design style for our living room that I could call my own. It was hard not to go crazy with the colors and textures, so...I just went for it! And I love it. In addition to faux fur and faux leather, there are touches of acacia wood and linen layered with silk and velvet; chrome and copper. I tried to be selective in hopes that it doesn't feel too overdone. I've always loved teal and warm wood tones, but I've added both white and ivory along with (gasp!) purple instead of my usual rusty oranges and reds. Before this, I never touched anything purple in my adult life (it's always good to try something new, right?). Even though I liked how everything looked in its place after gathering it all, I kept thinking that it needed just one more little piece to tie all the randomness together.

It's pertinent to add at this point that while trying to figure out what I should do for wall decor, I discovered fluid art, specifically alcohol ink, which soon became a passion. After staring at this previously-chalk-painted vase up on my bookshelf, I knew that adding the right shades of alcohol ink would make it the perfect completer piece. All the colors. A little more texture. A tiny touch of modern funk. And it worked! The room feels complete.

(However, let me interject for a moment to be real. I do not keep the vase on the ottoman as pictured. I have three kids who would destroy it. Typically, I'd have an actual bookshelf in the living room, but we had to move it out in the hallway behind the baby gate since the toddler has recently taken to climbing it like a ladder. So when I say "complete", there's some fluidity in the meaning. It's mom-complete. My husband also joked about what an "Instagram Moment" it was while I took these pictures, as the living room was clean, but the kitchen was messy from lunch while the same toddler screamed at me from the high chair. So there).

Back to my point -- I've been mulling over how important this concept of having a completer, or "tie-in" piece is to my personal life, especially right now. By the beginning of this year we finally felt like we were settling into our adult lives: our third and final child was here (yay, no more pregnancy or childbirth!); we bought our forever-home (no more moving, woot!); my husband had landed his dream job (no more having to pinch pennies or listen to grumpy job-rants! Holla!). Plus, I was going to finally have more chance to immerse myself in my art and writing after years of moving and babies and being the supportive wife figure. But then, without warning, my husband was suddenly laid off from his job last month. The dream job.

Instead of feeling that sense of "arrival" -- like we arrogantly had got the hang of things -- life now feels up in the air. Now it's wondering if my husband will find a job that he likes and also pays for our current lifestyle. If he does, will it have a decent commute that will allow me a bit of extra time away from kids to work on my goals? Will we need to move again? At least we won't be having any more kids...knock on wood. In summary, we had all these aspects of our lives finally fall into place after a lot of work, and now they feel discombobulated. The tie-in piece is missing.

There's an analogy that I've both heard and used dozens of times which came to mind today. It's about how living through life's difficulties is like putting together a puzzle. We have failures and successes trying to fit all the pieces together, and for a while we only see hints of the big picture along the way. But what if a piece just doesn't fit? Perhaps we set it aside for a time, or maybe we work harder to find exactly where it goes. Either way, we don't throw it out or say it's not a piece of our puzzle simply because we can't see how it belongs right then.

I don't necessarily buy into the mentality that "everything happens for a reason"; but I do believe that we can turn the difficult things that happen to us into growth and strength. We can build reason/purpose out of our suffering. That crappy thing that's going on in your life right now? It fits. Somehow it fits. It really sucks, but it's a part of your puzzle. Perhaps it's even is the tie-in piece to the rest your life, though you can't see how. Maybe it will become a strength, and possibly the most beautiful part about you.

Don't give up on yourself when faced with uncertainty! Don't let limited vision decide that a piece of your life doesn't belong. If you throw it out, you might never know what the whole picture could've been.

I'm trying to internalize all this for myself -- to be patient on my journey, to remind myself that the journey is MINE and mine alone, and to focus on how much of my life does fit together so perfectly right now! Currently, it's not like the warm-fuzzy feeling of looking at my complete living room (you know, on those rare occasions it's actually clean). But, from what I can tell so far, it's still going to be a pretty great picture.