Removing Wallpaper Deemed As Therapeutic

This last week, I've spent my free hours working for my Dad in preparing his home for a quick sale. The main portion of this time was spent removing wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom and in Megan's bedroom. The downstairs bathroom was the central location for all of us teenagers growing up in the basement of my parent's home. The bathroom is designed specifically for use by many people at one time and it held true to it's design as all 5 of us teenagers would get ready for school each morning, side by side. Therefore, I have many memories from that room, including the great memory of my mother's constant desire to provide a warm and loving environment for her children where they could make their multiple daily stops and, strangely enough, also receive spiritual inspiration or spiritual reminders of their purpose on earth. She always knew how to get into our heads and when a girl is standing, waiting patiently for each section of her hair to curl in the curling iron, she has nothing else to do, but let her eyes wander around the room and read these thoughtfully placed spiritual words.

As I look back now on these wonderful days, mostly because they included my mother who has now since passed, I have such good feelings. Therfore as I removed each section of wallpaper I encountered a great mixture of emotions. If you can only imagine the conflict of emotions including a lot of anger, because wallpaper is never fun to take down, a warm feeling of being loved and cared for by such a wonderful selfless mother, and great sadness because of her absence. Throughout the removal process, my emotions cycled as I alternated each section of wallpaper with a different emotion. One section I would be yelling inside my head, repeatedly; "I will never hang wallpaper in my home! I will never hang wallpaper in my home! I will never hang wallpaper in my home! Ever Ever Ever!" Followed by a verbal cry to my sister Megan, "Megan, don't you dare ever hang wallpaper in your home in the future, no matter how in style it may be!" and then, "I'm going to write a post and hope that I can save anyone who reads it from hanging wallpaper and having to remove it in the future!"

Then the next section would be thoughts such as, "Wow, this piece was put up by my mother's hands." Then imagining her left hand drawing the line that showed her where to put the piece up to while also thinking, "She was so wonderful to go to so much work in providing such a warm and beautiful environment for her children." "I always felt so loved by her!"

And the next section including feelings such as, "How dare she leave me and us? Oh, how I miss her so much! My life is so much less fun and enjoyable without her! Sure there is purpose and my testimony is stronger, but I still need her friendship and I miss her undying love and support so much! Oh, earth is so much lonelier without her physical presence!" Ok, so those thoughts are sad to me even now as I write them, but therapeutic none the less. Strangely, each time I suffer through them, it gets more and more common and therefore a little less painful, but not much.

Now if that isn't a mess of emotions, I don't know what is. The truth is after I was finished, I was happy because although it was definitely needed to update the home, it was quite an emotional roller coaster to ride, and especially since it was such a mess including wallpaper remover, old liquidated wallpaper paste, soaked and shreaded wallpaper pieces, and the shedding of lots of tears.

Therefore, the moral of the story is....Don't ever hang wallpaper! It's always physically easier as well as less emotionally painful to just redecorate using paint! It takes less time and therefore if you're ever in my situation and have to cry over a loved one while doing so, there will be less time to endure the pain!