Though I do love the show "Black Mirror", this about an actual black mirror. This story starts with a white mirror. Actually, it starts with a break-up and a life renewal. About 10 years ago, I broke up with my then boyfriend/fiancé for the (fifth!?! ugh! and) final time. (yes I kept taking him back even though I had hard evidence of him continually cheating on me, yes I was very gullible, naïve, and desperate and allowed him to treat me terribly, yes it was a big mistake...er...multiple big mistakes.) Because I had been living with (again!? ugh!), I had no where to live, but friend AA told me I could rent the basement room in her condo. She helped me move in and get settled, but then also GRACIOUSLY took me shopping to spruce up the room with all matching décor. (Growing up, my family didn't have a lot of money, so I seriously have NEVER had a room with all matching decor. My entire life has been adorned by a mismatch of stuff, including whatever random decorations, curtains, bedspreads, pillows, and sheets I happened to still have, got handed down, or got for cheap at Walmart or Target). But AA insisted that to start over in a fresh way, I should have my very first "adult" bedroom. That included nice quality matching lamps, mirror, bedding, wall hangings, etc that I would have definitely never treated myself to on my limited budget, but that AA treated me to as a way to help me through this breakup (and make it last this time). She even taught me about how to pick and to stick to a color scheme (I picked blue and brown 😀). She was a godsend, and she got me through arguably one of the most difficult times in my life. And it worked (with the exception of a brief interval where I start sneaking out to see the ex again [shaking my head in shame], but I nipped that pretty quickly in the bud) and I met my now husband 5 months later.
Fast forward 10 years, and 3 moves (AA's condo --> living with my (now) husband and his roommates --> our own apartment --> our own house) and I still have almost all of the items AA purchased for me on that amazing shopping excursion. The lamps on our bedside tables, the bedding is used in the guest bedroom, etc. I also still have this gorgeous white mirror that we picked out, but it's been tucked in a corner in the guest bedroom collecting dust, because each room already had a mirrored dresser. I could not allow myself to get rid of it because it was such a nice, high quality, heavy duty, mirror, but I had pretty much forgotten all about it.
One of my projects during this time of unemployment/discernment/quarantine has been to renovate our bedroom. My husband replaced both of the windows, which required me to paint the window trim and touch up the walls. But then it turned into a much bigger project (mostly because the wall paint I bought to touch up the walls did NOT exactly match the original color [thanks Home Depot] so I ended up having to paint the whole bedroom again). I also needed to paint ALL the trim in the room to match the window trim. We also decided I should paint the closet and bedroom doors (since they were the same ugly color as the original trim). Everything started to look so much nicer, so we decided to move around some furniture, and my husband encouraged me to finally buy a new dresser because the one I have (which we inherited from family members) is literally falling apart (on more than one occasion, I have pulled out a drawer and it has fallen on my foot-- ouch!). I finally found one I liked online and ordered it, but it does not have a mirror like the one I have now. And I like having a mirror there. That's when my husband suggested we use that gorgeous white mirror that we still have! A great idea (he always has great ideas 💕). But because it is white, it does not match anything in our newly painted bedroom (which is now a deep, rich purple with a dark grey, almost black, trim). So yesterday, I found the mirror, cleaned it up, and started painting it with the dark grey (black) color. After just the first coat, it started to look amazing and I was delighted with the progress (after the second coat it looks even better, and I can't wait to see the finished results after coat #3). It felt great to repurpose something I already had and make it look sparkling and new again.
Thinking back on my journey, via the story of this once white now black mirror, was also a delight (though obviously some parts of my journey still make me cringe, I have tried to accept the fact that we all make mistakes and I have to forgive myself for some of my admittedly incredibly stupid decisions in my 20s.. probably starting by not calling them stupid, but maybe "misguided" or "unwise"?) It was a delight to think back to that shopping trip with AA, and to think about how I turned my life around (with the help of AA and many others) and am now happily living with the love of my life instead of with a narcissistic, sociopathic, domestic terrorist. And it gives me hope that if I was able to move on from that terrible situation, I can move on from this situation, which is definitely not nearly as bad, in which I find myself in now, a confusing and depressing crossroads. And hopefully I will be able to look back on this moment 10 years from now, and see how I was about to turn my life around now too.
With delight,
♥Jamie
No comments:
Post a Comment