My reflection in the mirror

Today, we hung our bathroom mirror.

You'd think that for two people with college degrees, that this task wouldn't be so difficult. I'm convinced that the universe conspired against us and while we were out fixing brackets and wires, it was secretly shifting around the screws in our bathroom walls. This is the only explanation, because we literally attempted to hang that thing for 4 hours over the last two days.

Don't get me wrong, we successfully hung it at least a dozen times. However, each time we'd stand back and look, and then take the measuring tape to it to double check, we were off by one, two, three, four inches. Just when we'd get close and want to make a shift a half inch in one direction - whatever we did would completely throw us off course and we were back to being four inches off in any one direction.

After several hours of failed attempts, I looked at my newly painted, beautiful grey walls and saw scuff marks all over them. I quickly tried to scrub them off to no avail. However, I wasn't yet worried because my backup plan was the Magic Eraser (clearly the best invention to come out of the last decade. Sometimes I scuff my walls just to watch how amazingly the Magic Eraser gets them off - it's miraculous). However, I've now found the one downfall of the Magic Eraser. When you think it's erasing scuffs, it's actually just taking off layers of paint. So, not only did I now have scuff marks on my walls, but I had paint-less blotches. I was furious, frazzled and totally distraught.

The only solution? Repaint the wall.

Never mind the fact that it was 11:30 p.m. Never mind the fact that this would postpone my mirror hanging yet another day. Something had to be done and this was it.

Stuart was beside himself that I would even consider doing this. "it looks fine, no one will even notice" he said. And, I'm sure to the normal (un-anal-retentive, non-perfectionist) eye that it wasn't a big deal. But to my eye, it was horrendous. I tried to explain to him that every time I sat on the toilet I would stare at that wall and grow anxious. I would never be able to get over it....never!

So, I repainted the wall - again.

The whole ordeal was a charade.

After four hours, we finally hung the mirror. It looks really great and I'm trying to convince myself that it doesn't matter that it's a half inch off-center--and probably, most certainly, it doesn't. I'm hoping I'll just forget about the slightly asymmetrical wall when it's all said and done. I'll let you know how that goes.

The other day, in the midst of bathroom renovation and emotional turmoil, I turned to Stuart and said, "Why?!? Why can't I just be okay with a pink bathroom from the 50's?" Really - why? My life would be so much easier.