My front porch needs to be painted. The surface is cracked and peeled, revealing layer upon layer of paint, 80 years of colors. Time and moisture has taken its toll.
Our house is a lovely cottage, but the needs of the porch are starting to eclipse the rest of the facade.
So it needs to be repainted, but I’m scared.
Because repainting my front porch means scratching off all that old paint. I could throw on a new layer of paint on top of the old, but it wouldn’t survive the winter, and I would find my work wasted. So I know I need to invest a lot of time and elbow grease before I can even think about the next step.
I think my greatest fear is getting started and then getting delayed. To make my porch better I must first make it worse, peeling loose pieces and revealing what is underneath. What if the project takes weeks or month? My porch will be right there with all of its flaws, right there for the whole neighborhood to see. They won’t know the whole story. They won’t know how hard I’m working or see the vision I have in my head for a beautiful, renovated space. They will just see the patches and problems.
So I have a choice. I can live with my porch and its problems, not improving but accepting a level of decline that is slow and subtle. Or I can dive in, reveal the rough edges, and hope in a beautiful new beginning.
