The paint was wearing off of the front porch exposing the bare wood to the elements. A friend advised that my landlord needs to protect his investment, so I took her comment to heart and emailed him with photos of the sad shape it was in. He replied with, “Is there any paint?”

I had no idea if there was any paint here, but while cleaning out the little building in the backyard, I noticed a shelf lined up with paint cans. Upon further investigation, there was an almost full can that had some drips of paint on the outside of the can resembling the right color. It wasn’t the exact color of the porch, but it was the same color as the house, so I went to stirring a can of paint that had been undisturbed and sitting in darkness, for years.

I once asked my Yoga teacher, “How do you keep out of darkness and despair?” She looked at me as though I was half mad and said very slowly and plainly, “In order to come out of darkness, you simply have to step into the light. It’s that simple and the choice you make.”

Annemaree Rowley-‘Believe’ meditation on Insight Timer

I stirred that can of paint for days.

The porch needed a fresh coat of paint because the original paint had worn off from years of being exposed to the elements and it was stripped down to the wood. I repainted the porch myself because I already had the paint and everything else needed to get the job done. I waited all summer for my landlord to send someone to paint it for me until recently I emailed him back and said, “I’ll do it myself”, and used what I had. I wasn’t above buying a new can of paint if needed, because the porch needs protection through the upcoming winter months.

Here’s a website that offers tools to stay sober every hour of the day. We have to go to great lengths to protect our sobriety and no one can do this for us. Sobriety is to be met every day with intention, and just like finding this can of paint, renewal began the moment it was pulled out of darkness.