Unbalanced

I was looking forward to painting my back porch on Saturday. I was hoping that not only would it look fresh and clean, but that it would also help me put some balance back into my life. I’ve been working quite a few hours, have had lots of commitments outside of work and family, and was starting to get stressed. I needed some balance, some time to work on something just for me. Something that would give me a feeling of accomplishment.

The porch was something I helped build a few years back so it was an internal representation of accomplishment. In day-to-day life, it’s sometimes hard to find things that you can start, finish, and see tangible results from. So many things in life are not black and white. So while I didn’t relish the idea of painting all those spindles and rails again, once I got started, I could feel the impending sensation of achievement. I had power washed the entire porch earlier in the week, so little was going to get in my way of finishing this painting job. The weather forecast was predicting sunshine all weekend, so I was set.

I started on the inside, sitting on a stool, working my way around the porch. Each spindle was looking pretty sad until it got a fresh coat of the pure white, glossy paint I was using. As I worked my way around the inside of the porch nearly completing half the job, my daughter approached me looking to do something “fun” with her dad. I quickly processed her request and determined that I would not get another chance anytime soon to finish this painting chore, but I could surely hang out with her the next day. I wasn’t rude, but she got the message and quietly walked back into the house looking for something else to occupy her day.

As I finished my painting on the inside part of the porch and stepped back to admire my work, I could see how much better the porch looked. Sitting on the porch it looked great! My job was not done, though. I knew that anyone looking at the porch from the outside would still see the peeling paint that I had not yet covered.
I think that’s when it hit me. I cleaned up my paint brush, put away my paint and washed up. I then located my daughter and asked if she was still interested in doing something. Lucky for me, she was.

We ended up taking advantage of the beautiful day we’d been given by riding bikes, taking the dog for a walk and just hanging out together doing “stuff.”

So for those people that stop by and visit right now, you may see an ugly porch needing some paint as you approach, but from where I sit, with my daughter, things are looking really nice. I may not have the balance in life that you can see, but on the inside, where it matters, things are looking good!