Tuesday, June 9, 2009

It gets worse before it gets better

I have to keep reminding myself of this as I survey the construction zone around our house. Here is our house in March:



It looks a bit abandoned and sad, but not too bad on the whole.

And here is our house today:



Now there is no roof, it's tarped, windows are boarded up, and there are notices taped to the front window! Not to mention the piles of shingles, wood, and ladders surrounding the house on all sides.

I remember in college they decided to replace the old ugly wooden lamp posts with new metal ones. The new ones were definitely nice, but it meant digging up the whole quad to run new electrical. There were piles of mud and dirt and holes in the ground for months. It was awful. But the project was finally completed and in the spring they hung two huge hanging flower baskets from each new lamp post all through the quad. It was spectacular.

At that time I reflected that change was like that. When you're making a change, things sometimes get worse before they get better. When you organize a room or house, it turns into even more of a disaster during the process - until it all comes back together and is much better than before. I can't think of a remodeling project this isn't true of.

It's also true of the the alterations I've been doing this year. When someone gives me a shirt or pair of pants to fix, I have a moment of panic as I'm ripping out zippers or cutting the bottoms of pant legs off. What if I can't put this back together!? What if I've wrecked this piece of clothing!? Although, a friend of mine remarked yesterday that if the item is already unwearable, I can't make it any worse! So far, in every instance, I've been able to get everything back together and fixed and looking better than before.

Sometimes, when you want to make a change, things get worse before they get better. I guess this simply means: change doesn't happen instantly! It takes time and you have to be patient.

So, patience Aimee! The construction will end (some day), the yard will recover, and we'll have years to enjoy our home construction-free.

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