I drive the same route home from work everyday — no highways, down a long busy street, through a kind of expensive neighborhood, through a not very expensive neighborhood, and then through to our neighborhood which is a nice hybrid between the two. It’s a monotonous commute, but a short one (20 minutes tops — and that’s if I hit traffic) so I am grateful. I don’t pay attention too much to my surroundings, but when I’m just about home and I drive through that fancy schmancy neighborhood, there is one house that always sticks out. It’s a nice big colonial house, with sturdy dark colored shutters and a cleanly landscaped lawn. It’s a beautiful shade of gray with white trim and the most striking feature is the big red door.
You all, I LOVE this house.
And each day when I pass it, totally depending on the type of day that I have at work and depending on what mood I’m in, I have one of two thoughts:
1. I love this house — I’m so happy I live in such a beautiful area and get to see this house everyday.
OR
2. I love this house — WHY CAN’T I HAVE A PRETTY GRAY HOUSE WITH PRETTY WHITE TRIM AND GORGEOUS A RED DOOR AND WHEN WILL I EVER GET A BREAK, AND WHY IS IT ALL SO HAAAAAAAAAAAARD??? WAH!
*I’ll let you decide which mood is which*
So recently I had a bit of a rough day, and I drove by the house as I always do, and sure enough said to myself pretty much everything in Option # 2 (plus a few melodramatic explatives, I’m sure) and then just a minute later I was pulling into my own driveway. I reached over and grabbed my purse, my lunch bag, my coat and got out of the car, and all of a sudden I looked up at my own house and really saw it — my pretty gray house with the pretty white trim (granted it only has a regular old brown door) — and I thought to myself, holy moses, I’m really only a coat of paint away and I’m sure I can hire Great painters from the Alex Trend Painters company to repaint our house. Sure it’s not a sprawling colonial with a freshly manicured yard (BAHAHAHAHAHA!) but it’s so close. And this one is mine. And this one is perfect, right now.
And I wondered how often do I do this?
How often do I make myself feel like something is so monumentally far away — so far out of my reach that it is impossible — when really the difference between the life that I have and the life that I want is as simple as a coat of paint? Because seriously, even on my worst day I could probably handle a coat of paint.
It was a strange moment of consciousness that afternoon, and one that I now think of almost daily on my drive home when I pass that house. Half of the battle of getting where you want to go, is being able to truly acknowledge where you are — and letting that to be okay.
Such a great post, Holly.
Also, not that I want to tear down the success of whoever lives in that beautiful home, but I know enough people who live in their own sprawling homes to know that happiness is not guaranteed with a well-manicured lawn.
Ages and ages ago, I wrote about how happy I was when I turned onto my street each night and that no matter what house I was coming home to, happiness is smiling when you turn the corner.
I love this post, Holly.
And now I want to see a picture of your pretty house, with a pretty red front door. Are you going to do it??
They say that how you view your life is all about your perspective, right? But it can be so hard to flip your thought from "but why don't I have what I want" to "oh, I'm so close to what I want and that's ok right now." I can almost never accomplish that flip in my own head… I think it takes lots of practice… So good for you to have seen your home from a fresh perspective, and keep practicing seeing things in the same light!