We are turtles

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We bought paint almost three years ago. Then, in the first year of the pandemic, together we painted the living room sunny yellow. While the first coat of paint was drying, we lay side by side on the newspaper-covered floor and stared up at the still slightly stained yellow ceiling until our eyes sparkled and it seemed to us that we were in a sunny place, far away.

We made plans not for travel, which is quite difficult even without a pandemic, but for drawing. Turquoise walls in the bedroom, orange in the dining room. And we’ll paint the dark brown monster furniture that fills the walls, which Victor built himself over twenty years ago, in three different colors: yellow, red, and light green. “Like in a Mexican church,” Victor said dreamily.

We bought paint. We also immediately bought a new lamp made of multi-colored glass balls. And then… to be honest, I don’t remember exactly what happened either. Something is always happening. Diagnosis, hospitalization, operation. Opening of the exhibition, new book, party. Dinner invitation, travel around the country. Stop life. In all your wealth.

But things remain in place. Sometimes for years.

Just between us, I couldn’t take it before. And I still struggle with it sometimes. The idea that the list of life tasks can really be worked out, no, even necessary, goes back quite deeply. And not only with me.

The other day our friend Sam came to Sunday lunch in triumph: he finally fixed his oven door handle himself, if not with the help of Youtube. “I was frustrated with this role for ten years,” he says. Once he even turned to a specialist for help, but he only scratched his head and said that it was difficult. You have to unscrew the entire door, disassemble and reassemble. Sam didn’t trust himself to do this, so he used to only hold the handle on one side that wasn’t loose.

But then a friend came to visit – “Friend?” we yelled “What friend?” But that’s another story, and Sam didn’t want to tell it. Only that she brought a quiche that she wanted to warm up for a little while. “No!” Sam screamed as she opened the oven door. Her shocked appearance was the decisive factor: Sam fixed the door. It was as difficult as the pro foresaw, but he did it. It took him less than an hour – or ten years. “I’m a turtle, not a rabbit!”

“We are all like that!” We all take on more than we can handle. But somehow we always reach our goal, or at least an intermediate goal. Even if it sometimes takes years. “Remember how long Victor and Milena had to cook on that one electric stove?” a friend interrupts, and everyone laughs. We, too. “But we always ate well with you guys!” Sometimes life can get in the way of completing our to-do list, but that’s okay. As long as it’s not the other way around.

Source: Blick