The set I was building this week was a bit of a doozy and designed by a very talented designer friend. Brilliant, beautiful, spaceship interior, but big and cumbersome as well.
This is over 400 square feet of platforming all of which includes carpet padding and painted canvas on top, plus a kitchy console, band wall, and projector screen. Begun exactly 10 days ago with platform pulling and pre-painting of all available exposed wood, installation completed yesterday with final clean-up today. It has blinking lights and running water. It can take you into space and I've been over it, under it and in its guts a lot the past week. It was not my design but I've been fairly engaged in the building and moving of it, and it has been exhausting for a lot of obvious and less obvious reasons. Juggling the kids while working on this has been tough. My right hand and forearm picked this week to get all gimpy, painful and pathetic. And I have not been a happy camper. When things get challenging, REALLY challenging, I get a lot less friendly. It's true. Moderate challenge makes me pretty happy. Big time-crunch, not so happy.
All this talk about the magic being somewhere outside of one's comfort zone aside...honestly, when I am truly outside my comfort zone doing something really challenging and difficult, I am not even slightly magical to be around. I think I get serious and brusque and sometimes even...less than nice. I have made it outside my rather considerable comfort zone a few times this year and I now realize just where that line is. When there is a chance that I might fail and may other people are counting on me not to fail, that is where it is. And it is not actually pretty. I am going to go out on a crazy limb here and say that I've now been outside my comfort zone quite a few times in the past, year or two. And while perhaps sometimes some magic may happen there, mostly it kind of sucks. I'm working hard, often hurting, worrying, scrambling. I kind of lose my sense of humor and my patience is just not what it usually is. Challenge simultaneously brings out the best and the worst in me. Some people get it, some people get affronted. Most people are just glad when things settle a little and I start smiling and laughing again. I'm just glad when I get to laugh at something other than my own shortcomings. And woe be unto him who dared ask "So how's the packing going?"
Well, now that that is all pretty well in place, I get to go back to worrying about how we're going to clean-out and move all this...STUFF at home. I'm definitely pre-exhausted!
Looks cool! ("It's a giant spider invasion of savings at Menard's!!!")
ReplyDeleteI am exhausted thinking about everything you are doing. :)
When this is all done (if it is EVER done), let's watch that movie! I am exhausted as well in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteI think I just learned how to comment!
ReplyDeleteCorinna, you need to cut yourself some slack. The set is, dare I say it, out of this world. What you accomplished in 10 days with this set is nothing short of amazing. If you got crabby in the process, WHO WOULDN'T, given the timeline and the amount of work? I would, and I'm quite sunny by nature.
I used to have to put together an entire 16-page magazine between finals and the start of the next quarter, and it exhausted me and contributed to my flunking out of grad school. Now that creating a magazine is my main day job, I can set a production schedule that doesn't kill me. I hardly ever get surly.
Your loyal blog followers don't think you have feet of clay but still think you're Super for accomplishing far more than any of us have. Right, loyal followers? So take a day off, drink eggnog & rum, rest your hand. They go back to leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
Woo hoo! A comment!
ReplyDeleteI think I was just feeling frustrated that the move-prep had to come to a standstill while I took care of this other project. Onward!