There are people who couldn't imagine a worse punishment than spending a Sunday afternoon faced with a paintbrush and four walls begging for a fresh look.  I'm not one of them.  For some reason, I find painting incredibly cathartic.  I've never been sure if it's the constant, repetitive motion that requires no thought, and therefore releases my brain to think about other things, or if it's something else entirely.  Regardless, I had a bit of an epiphany this afternoon, while I was painting the living room and kitchen of my new place. 

Life takes a toll of the walls of our houses - little boys scuff and ding them with their baseballs, and the everyday dirt slowly piles up, and their look changes.  What was once fresh and new becomes dingy and dated.  We pass by those walls every single day, and it becomes so routine that we forget to look, to assess the condition. 

I watched the paint smoothly glide onto the walls, hiding all imperfections - that smudge from the last tenant's shoe scraping the wall, the dirty handprint under the light switch - and when I was done, I was reminded again of how much difference a little time and a little paint can make.

I wish that camouflaging the effects of life on ourselves was a little easier.  I wish that the bumps and bruises that I wear around every day were as easy to erase.  If only I could make decisions knowing that the past disappointments and heartache weren't coming along for the ride, that I wasn't using the past to make decisions about the future.  Not that learning from our pasts isn't great, because it is.  But where is the line separating learning from our pasts and letting our pasts dictate our futures?

Is it stupid to wish that I could paint over all of that?  Is it naive to think that life would be easier if there were certain emotional places that didn't hurt every time someone accidentally touched upon them?  Is it irrational to stand in my living room and wish that I could put a fresh coat of paint on my soul, and start all over?

To look upon life again with the wonder of a child who knows that the boogeyman isn't real, and who trusts those she loves with an unconditional fervor that is the greatest love of all, and who wakes up each day with thoughts of dreams and hopes instead of disappointments and obligations.  I want to go back to those days of eternal innocence and unlimited optimism, instead of walking around every day knowing that boogeymen (and there are certainly more than one) are all too real and all around us, and that the people we love all too often don't love us back as much as we'd like, and that life has more disappointments than joys on any given day.

At what point, do you think, do all the scuffs and dings, the bumps and bruises, the disappointments and pain, start to change who we are?  And how do we make sure they're not changing us for worse, but for the better? 

I think I'm going to need more paint.

"I would rather be ashes than dust!  I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot.  I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.  The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.  I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.  I shall use my time." -Jack London