Well, the glue dried, but it’s been a busy few days so it took me until now to have a minute to clear off the table to have room to reach the little wood blocks that were about to become magnets. So exciting!
This was easily the simplest part of the whole project. All I had to do was peel off the back of the magnet stickers and stick them to the back of the block and then *presto* I’d have magnets. I mean, look at it; it was literally a matter of minutes before I’d be done. Peel and stick, peel and stick, peel and stick.
When I was done, all that was left was to pop them, or more accurately slap them, onto the refrigerator. So I loaded them up into my hands and headed towards the kitchen. Up they went!
So I was done. And then I stood there. It felt very anticlimactic. I had struggled through the project and figured out all kinds of things and then boom; I was done. I literally found myself standing in front of my refrigerator and sighing. What the heck was wrong with me? This project had driven me crazy, why wasn’t I thrilled to be done?
I think it’s for the same reason you are excited to get out of work on a Friday if you have somewhere to go. Everyone rushes off and hops into their cars and you’re carried along with the momentum of it until you’re on your way home and you realize you have reruns and a pizza in your future instead of something fun or exciting. You left work all excited, but now that the rush is over you feel sort of let down. It was the same with this project. I was so excited to be done that I hadn’t thought about how it would feel to actually be done. As much as the project frustrated me, it was something that had captured and held my attention and made me feel like I had something to do. I know, you’re thinking that sounds awfully sad, I kind of do too. I hadn’t realized exactly how much my life had changed during the pandemic until I was disappointed to be done with these magnets.
What used to be a joy and my favorite kind of freedom, to explore new things and places and see what was out there in the world, wasn’t available to me once the lockdowns and travel advisories and mask mandates started and I wasn’t able to physically go anywhere. It brought up those same feelings to finish the magnets. It made me feel slightly deflated and at loose ends. I was literally standing there thinking, “Now what?”
Now that people are getting the shots and things are opening up, this project it has reminded me that I used to have adventures finding dirt roads and just seeing where they went, or driving in a direction and seeing what was out there. For now, I’m still being super careful, but thinking about this project after I was done gave me the same feeling I get when I open the door on the first warm spring day when I can taste the adventure that is waiting for me out there, and I cannot wait to see what I can find and who I can meet. The day that is an option again, I’ll be writing you from the woods or a lake or on a mountain somewhere.
For now, I happen to have nine lovely magnets. Anyone need something stuck to their fridge?
Duct Tape and Dreams 