Coloring Outside the Lines

My need for order started early.

I was the little girl who worried when her crayons went outside the lines of the coloring book. There was something so definitive about the the bold black outline around a picture that made me too nervous to cross it. I wanted my teacher to like my work. I wanted my work to be refrigerator and contest worthy. I needed to stay inside the lines.

I've always tended to stay inside the lines. While friends dove into the college search with a gusto, I had my dad draw a 3 hour drive ring on the map and concentrated on options well within the circle. When I started college, I taped a carefully sketched daily schedule to the dorm wall next to my bed so that I could live each day with a plan. While studying abroad in Italy or England sounded exotic, I marched determinedly through my no-more-than-8-semester collegiate design. As time continued, I kept my crayons far from life's bolded edge. An out of state teaching job in the beautiful West? I eagerly embraced a high school opening at my alma mater. A home with acreage in a little town down the highway? My husband and I set up a life in the heart of our hometown. Bold orange on the walls of my home office? How about a comfortable cream?

As a line follower, I'm also a list maker, agenda creator and life planner. Our shopping list is on the refrigerator, next to the meal plan for the week and under the calendar for the month. The day's tasks are on a post-it note on the kitchen counter next to the pen that crosses completed items off with triumph. My more spontaneous husband is patient...he has learned that there will be a momentary panic if he suggests something that isn't yet on my radar screen. He doesn't laugh at the typed lists that line the dining room table before a party. He knows that "we" need to "study" all options before making a final decision (the poor guy and his wedding and baby registry experiences!) and that there is an art (and a "right way") to cleaning the house. (Ah, the pleasures of a refrigerator that has all labels facing neatly outward...).

I'm learning that life doesn't always allow for neat lines. My 110 lb bulldog will track muddy paw prints in from the backyard and his short hair will inevitably find its way all over my home. A mom raccoon will somehow wiggle her way into our attic to have her babies. The dishwasher will billow smoke during a routine morning run. I will have a baby two weeks early and end up grading final exams in my hospital room. My daughter's nap schedule will fluctuate weekly and it will take me three hours to do one simple task. And that kitchen counter post-it? It might not have a single thing crossed off at the end of the day.

I asked my husband one night over a glass of wine how I had changed since becoming a mom. He smiled at me and said, "You actually sit down." While I feel like I run around like a crazy woman even more now than I did before, I knew what he meant. Having her showed me - quickly - that I couldn't have it my way all of the time. Her needs and her schedule are going to be the priority. And that has been a fantastic realization.

Tonight, I did the unthinkable. I literally colored outside of the lines. My husband brought home fingerpaint and blank canvases and we did a little family art project - our first. Our baby girl happily plopped her hands in the paint and scratched and slid and patted her way across each frame. Paint streaked her face, tinted her hair, splattered her little white onesie, and spotted her chubby thigh rolls. She giggled, she kicked and she played, throwing color everywhere. Delighted by her chortles, I scooped her up and helped her dance across a canvas, sliding her toes and swirling her feet through her handpainted designs. Hugging her post project, her rainbow toes left streaks on my shirt while her tiny fingers traced tracks on my shoulder. Watching her ride downstairs in her dad's arms to her bath, babbling all the way, I grabbed the Windex bottle to clean up the counter and smiled at the four sweet "art" canvases lined up to dry. She did her first art project and she colored with glee, not a care (or a line) in sight. I can't wait to hang her pictures up.

Tonight, I colored outside the lines - and I loved it.

Maybe tomorrow, I can do without the post-it.