Painting The Door White...

I recently put my house up for sale... and it's been a challenging ordeal to say the least...

Being a Single Parent there are a few things that I have to deal with that parenting with a Partner would make easier... which, on the surface is following around a four year old and picking up toys that she leaves out...

As with most of the things I do, I found a "zen" type moment when I was painting the door.

And I wanted to share it with you.

It all starts the day I signed with the Real Estate company, which was Saturday.

After all the paperwork got out of the way and I was satisfied that my questions were answered, it was time to start taking pictures and making sure the house was as tidy as possible.

The real estate agent started snapping away and then I noticed that she stopped.

She had gone into the kitchen, grabbed a rag and started cleaning the door jam.

It's a white door jam that, over the years, had become dingy... It had scuffs on it and a few chips of paint that were pretty noticeable...

And, you know, it was like washing your car... Right after you wash your car you can see the tiny dings and scratches in it...

I mean, they were there before... but they were hidden under the dirt and grime your car picked up from the road.

Well, the same thing happened to the door.

It's taken years of abuse as being both the portal to the house and the way to the escape pod.

It's seen many a happy time and sometimes the sad times.

As I watched her try to remove the scuffs from the door I realized that there was only one choice to make it actually look decent... and that was to paint it.

I pointed this out to her and she agreed...

So here I was... two hours after all the pictures were taken and the real estate agent left... My daughter was content sitting at the table with a coloring book and I was "white-washing" my front door.

And then it hit me... This is just like my life.

Of course, the cliche thing would be to parallel painting the door with the decisions we make in life... how sometimes we get emotional "scrapes" and mental "dings" along our path.

Don't get me wrong, all those are true...

I wanted to use painting the door as an example of taking something "old", like a concept or an idea, and making it into something new.

You know, like when you go back and read a book for a second time... You pick up on subtle nuances that you didn't notice before. And where they there? Yes, of course they were... you just didn't see them.

This is how I felt when I was painting the door.

I was so used to seeing the door the way it was that I didn't even notice the tiny amount of "damage" that was done to it.

And then I thought about this a little deeper... And how this applies directly to life.

You see, painting is a little like catching up on this, or having the realization that you want to change something...

Is it fine on it's own?

Of course it was... I mean, the door still opened and still allowed for us to leave and enter my house.

But with the paint on it, it LOOKED better... Ultimately giving a better FEELING because it seemed cleaner.

But what about actual "repairs"? Things in life we notice that we want to actually CHANGE.

Those are like cracks you see in a wall.

What do you do with a crack? You get out some spakle and you repair it.

You notice where the damage happened and you fix it.

What do we do after we patch a crack?

We paint over it... Painting could symbolize something new... it could mean a cover-up or it could be a resolution...

But for this example let's say that it represents something "cleaner".

You see, it depends on how you look at it... It's all water in a glass and nothing more. Sometimes it's half full and sometimes it's half empty.... it's the perspective of something new and clean that adds the ambiance to it.

As your patching the cracks in your life and adding on a new coat of paint, remember that we're in this together, learning lessons along the way.

Talk to you soon,