I attempted to throw a party yesterday.

It was a pity party.

I don’t know why. Maybe it was because my husband was out of town. Maybe it’s because my 4 year-old has a lying problem. Maybe it it was the fact that by the time I got both kids to school I felt like I’d put in a full day’s work and I didn’t want to do anything.

Maybe it was all those things, but the final straw were the violas.

Poor violas!

I bought violas the other day with the intention of potting them and making a pretty little display for next to my front door. Yet, almost a week later there they sit in their disposable plastic cups from the nursery, dying. So when I pulled back in the driveway after dropping my little one off at school and saw these poor wilted violas, my pity party festivities began.

Have any of you ever thrown a pity party? They’re very easy. You don’t have to decorate, in fact, decorations may ruin your pity party, and you don’t ever ever clean up. They happen mostly in your own head. You can try to invite other people to your pity party, but the guests usually just pop in for a moment and don’t stick around. The most important part is the playlist. The playlist consists of hits like, “Why can’t I get it together?” “I’ll never be a success,” and the ever popular, “It’s not really my fault.”

Perhaps the most important element for a successful pity party is at least some degree of melodrama. So, with that in mind, I picked up one of the little cups of violas, the one that, in my opinion, would have been the prettiest had it lived, and carried it inside. My intention? To paint a portrait of my failure.

How annoyed are you with me right now? Are you rolling your eyes? You absolutely should be. Sidenote: I had other work I needed to be doing. Other paintings on my easel, etc., but when you have a party to plan…

So, here I sat with my mostly dead violas in front of me, watercolor sketchbook out, fully intending to not only paint a portrait of my failure, but then to blog about it! (Good Lord, that melodrama was turned up high!) There was one little flower that was still alive…a symbol of what could have been had I not failed them (Can’t you just hear the cello music?).

However, something went wrong. I started painting and sort of lost my party theme. Instead of listing how I had failed, I got lost in doodling the details. The dead blooms changed from something to lament to just something to observe…something to depict. Instead of something to fix and change they became something that simply are what they are.

By the time I finished my watercolor sketch, my pity party had really petered out. So, I left the party and got to work. Successful parties need engaged guests and a pity party is no exception.

Oh, and a weird thing happened. A couple hours later I noticed my violas had perked up. Maybe they were just chilly outside. Or maybe they were playing dead for attention and suffered from their own share of melodrama. Who knows?