Etch A Sketch Life

Remember Etch a Sketch? That magical toy with the big red frame and the two white knobs -- vertical and horizontal -- and those thin gray lines that followed the whirl of the dials, snaking across the screen?

As a kid, I was fascinated by my Etch A Sketch. I felt a love, and then a hate for it.

Because here's the problem: You cannot selectively erase on the Etch A Sketch. It's an all or nothing proposition.

Those lines are created by aluminum powder inside, scraped away by a stylus that constantly touches the screen, so that it leaves a connected trail of every spot it's been. Creating with an Etch a Sketch was so unlike drawing with crayons, where I could lift the tips off the page, leave gaps and spaces between strokes. When I drew with my Etch A Sketch, every jot and tittle had to touch what came before and after. For a perfectionist kid, this was like a cursive handwriting assignment from hell.

While I sensed the shortcoming immediately, it took a while for me to turn on my new toy. At first, I was so continually impressed at the thing, wondering just how it worked. (Look: Pre-tech tech!) Plus, there was the challenge of translating the free-form ideas in my head onto a screen with only two precise and rigid directions... irresistibly hard! I got really good at diagonal lines, because they required manipulating both dials simultaneously. Perfect diagonals and, then... CIRCLES!... felt like I had outsmarted my Etch A Sketch.

I was probably a few months in when I hit the wall. And it wasn't the constant connecting lines that finally did it. It was the inability to backspace. Even a little. The lack of any way to reverse and UNDO on the Etch A Sketch.

You may remember this frustration, too. When you were deep into a picture and some little stroke went astray. Your grip slipped. And your drawing point ended up far from where you wanted it. You could either leave a record of the mishap and backtrack across the screen -- or shake the thing vigorously to wipe it ALL clean. The only "erase" was a total reboot.

And, boy, did I do a lot of rebooting. THAT was what finally soured me on the Etch A Sketch. Too much time gone, when I was deep into some intricate design, slipped up, and felt like I had to start over. I was forever starting over. And, finally, I never started at all.

...I did mention I was a perfectionist, right? A very high-achiever. That is, when all the lines of my life converged just right.

Roughly 36 years and several steps of Perfectionism & Achievement Recovery later, I find myself at a very Etch A Sketch moment. My zealous love of new challenges has been tempered by time and exhaustion, but on the plus side, my deep hate for mistakes has been replaced with deeper understanding. I want to do SOMETHING, even knowing I can't always do it excellently. I want to leave a trail, even accepting I won't always like what's left behind.

It never was the device -- or just the device -- that bugged me so deeply. It was the idea of the thing. And the thing was life. Unfair life, with all its messy bits, asides and gone-astrays that we must live through, and leave records of, and don't get to shake off our internal screens.

Because there are no selective erases in LIFE, either. We start to doodle, then we learn to draw, and all along, all that we add goes right on top of what was already there... every jot and tittle connected to what comes before and after.

We are who we are in a continuum. So that, yes, we can change direction and begin to redraw our pictures at any time -- but we don't get to wipe away every errant lifeline. The bad parts; the good parts; they're all just THERE. In the history we make. And since they're all connected, we mostly can't clear the bad without losing the good.

I've been at this Etch a Sketch life for a while now. I moved past perfection paralysis and tried a few things. The bummer? They didn't all go as planned. And still aren't going. The outlying lines are a little messy. And I have wanted few things more than to VIGOROUSLY SHAKE THE LIFE when the picture looked marred to me. When I thought the mess was more than I could endure. I have deeply wanted to wipe that slate and start over.

I've especially wanted to start over on MYSELF, backtracking on the talents that are most deeply mine from God. Waiting to start creating or expressing, because I'm not good enough to craft something without backtracks... fits and starts, and plenty of stops. For a long time, I've been thinking that an empty slate of creation is better than a messy, incomplete slate with stray lines and unpolished thoughts. That's really too bad, that kind of thinking, so I'm working to change it. Because I was made to sketch.

I last wrote in this blog in 2011. I stopped when I felt I didn't have the time to do any good work here, anymore. {Yep. HERE. In this total backwater of the Internet, with no intent to ever "go big" or "go public," with maybe 8 readers who have to be friendlies to even find me, with no deadlines and NO pressure and NO expectations.} What I didn't have time for, anymore, was perfectly orchestrated pictures. I knew I was presenting rankly amateur writing and I didn't like thinking of myself as an amateur.

And so, without a strategy or a plan -- and no news skills -- I'm back. To show up and etch out a thin vertical line as my personal flag in the sand. I don't expect a do over; I accept life's all or nothing terms. And I would rather create imperfectly than never start again, at all.

With words. With everyday experiences. With emotions bigger and more universal than me. With these things, I was made to sketch. ...Wanna watch while I draw you something?