#23 Finished

Here is my account of last night, as it happened in my head; that tiny box that sits on my shoulders that is filled with backwards logic and fantastical rationality; I get that I’m a little bizarre in some of my ideals but you’d totally understand if you lived here too.
So last night on my way home from work I stopped to pick up some Christmas gifts and while driving down Bay Area I get a text from Mizz Andrea. I try not to text while I drive so I glance at the phone and it said “hey we are making dinner”, so I reply, or course, that I’ll be there soon, it wasn’t until I was already on my way with Laine packed up and set for the night and Erik home sick, enjoying the house all to himself for once, that I finish reading the text sitting at a red light; “hey we are making dinner and painting on the murals if you’d like to come paint with Samantha and me and your mom can watch Laine.” DANGIT! I know it was my fault that I didn’t read the whole text but I still felt suckered, hoodwinked, FOXed! Why can’t I see?! Oh yeah, the wool’s in my eyes! So, head down, beaten and resigned I continue on my way. I get to the house and its fun and food and good company to get me comfortable in my surroundings; they are feeding my trust and calming my concentrated terror of what is to come. These smiling assassins, these cannibals, just fattening me up with kindness and then they turn, BAM! Time to paint. Go be artsy, go be fartsy. I DON’T WANT TO PUT GOLD IN IT!!!! I am dragged by my hair outside into the bunker of human anguish where the young mistress of torture awaits me. She hands me a cup of water and some paint and tells me that I will be in charge of the red houses. IS THERE NO MERCY?! My hands shake; I’m going to fail, and I’m going to ruin what work they’ve done, I can’t stucco!
So I sit on the ground with Sam and I take my paintbrush and I stare at my two red and a brown and I poke at it, and I push it around and finally I start making the canvas wet. I’m not setting the thing on fire with my death ray eye which is incredibly relieving to me. With that thought one chain falls off my back and I try shading the side of the building, and the reds don’t turn to gold and the paint is going where I want it to go and I have no idiotic goblin lady staring over my shoulder saying “No, no, nononono, it’s all wrong, start over!” There goes another chain. I move on to windows and doors and then on to the second red house and I find that I’m having fun with Sam and there goes another chain. I’m not thinking about how I need to keep that brick wall around my pride and I don’t need to be defensive of the slant to my brushstrokes or the choice of black instead of brown, and there goes another chain.
By the time the cherry pie is ready in the kitchen I’m feeling better, I’m feeling like I deserve to be there helping my friends that I’m not ruining anything but in fact I’m contributing. I realize that I was making the whole situation a lot worse than it needed to be. It’s hard for me to go from planted in the dirt to orbiting the moon in few seconds. It’s been nine and a half years since I’ve picked up a paint brush. Nine and a half years! I almost made it to ten years, I was so close. But these people will not let me fail and they will not allow me to give up. They knew I had surrendered my fight and still they hand me back my sword. I’m not saying I’m back in the fight but I will say that I have withdrawn my white flag. And just because I am feeling a bit smug today, I will reiterate what I have said a multitude of times in the past; up yours Mrs. Fox, up yours.