A new coat of paint

I’m currently renovating our spare room which involves removing some very old wallpaper. We’ve been living here for 24 years and it’s always looked a bit tatty, but in the last few years it’s been looking more and more sad, so it’s definitely time for a spruce up.

My back is playing up (the result of not enough exercise and a chronic lower back problem which flares up now and then ) so progress is slow. But now that I’ve started, I can’t give up.

I’ve always been very stubborn so that’s nothing unusual.

Today while I was working my way around the room, I was thinking about the time I made video about a peer support program at one of the local high schools. This entailed going to a sport and recreation centre with a group of 14-year-olds for the weekend. At the time I had a frozen shoulder so I could only use one arm properly. I couldn’t lift my left arm above my head without shrieking with pain but nevertheless, I went out in a zodiac (inflatable boat) and filmed them learning to kayak. I also videoed them abseiling and doing a high-ropes course and I was glad to have the excuse of being one-armed so that I didn’t have to admit that I was afraid of heights. I sent the little hand-held video camera up on a pulley and one of the trained staff filmed the kids in close up, trembling as they inched their way across the high wire. I remember one boy freezing in the middle of the rope, petrified that he would fall even though he was wearing a full harness. I felt for him and his obvious anguish, mixed with embarrassment.

The point of the weekend was to train the kids to feel confident about talking to their peers about their personal issues, including their attitudes towards drug and alcohol consumption. The idea was that they would relate better to their peers than the teachers and would be able to positively influence their choices. They were a hand-picked group who were either natural leaders or thought to be “at risk”, the idea being that being involved in the program might be good for them. The local police sent a terrific youth liaison officer on the camp and he talked to the kids about his experiences of picking up young people off the street who were so drunk that they could hardly stand. He was an amazing speaker and they listened closely to everything that he said.

I interviewed every single young person at the camp and I still have the raw footage. I wonder where they are now? They would be all grown up, about 32 by my calculation. I wonder how many of them made it through adolescence unscathed and if the training program helped them to think differently about themselves or helped them make different choices? I wonder if just being singled out as a “leader” made them feel special enough to protect them from the peer pressure that so often results in disastrous consequences.

Who knew that stripping wallpaper could be so thought-provoking?

As I throw the yellowing floral wallpaper into the bin, I think about all the choices we make in life and how great it is that we always have the chance to start over with a new coat of paint.