Shortly after my father began his journey with dementia, he was visiting my home and I mentioned I was having difficulty removing the residue from the dining room chairs caused by the natural gas stove. He immediately set at trying to clean them and made it his mission to clean them each time he was in my home from that time forward. He would come in, find the cleaning products and go at it. If he couldn't find cleaning products, he would use one of his keys. I could not convince him he had succeeded in cleaning the chairs. Soon, he was through the buildup, the polyurethane, the stain and into the wood. But yet he persisted. I knew this behavior had to do with his dementia but I didn't truly understand his obsession. Truth be told, I was just a few years out from a stroke and little things really got on my nerves easily, so this behavior did irk me just a tad so I might not have tried to understand as hard as I might should have. Here we are, nearly twenty years later, and I still have those dining room chairs, scrapes and all. I just don't have the heart to refinish them.
Having told you that little tale, I come back to one of my latest projects. The dining table I have written about on a couple of past occasions. As I said, I was very pleased with how well it turned out. Or so I thought. I was walking past it a few days after completing it and noticed what I felt to be a blemish on the table surface. Soon, I had stripped the entire top and was in the process of refinishing it. So far, I've done this six times! I'm currently in my seventh run. My wife says the first iteration was perfect, I'm just being unrealistic. And she might be right. I just can't help myself. Each time I walk by the table I see something else that I feel I must correct. And I do!
As I sat sanding on the table top at 3am a couple of days ago, I came to a startling realization. This table had become my dining room chairs. No matter how much anyone or anything told me the table was perfect, I could not help myself but to do one more thing to improve it. I realized I was obsessed with the table. But it hasn't stopped me. Such is the state of my mind.
The realization also does two other things. One, it gives me a much deeper understanding and sympathy for what my father was going through and two, it makes me a bit ashamed for my lack of patience and being irked.
If some of you have a LO who seems unable to let go of something that seems inconsequential to you, maybe this will lend some insight and peace.
Take care,
Randy
