Paint

The day I left home, the room I grew up within had walls painted white.

That was due to my having sullied them in my teenage endeavors.

When your old Man was a young Man, he made everyone who came into his room write something, anything, on his wall with permanent marker. The wall meant something. It was 1992... before facebook.

You see, everyone that I ever loved or cared about picked up the stick and wrote what they felt. They wrote what they wanted to say. Unabashed, unaltered, unending. They wrote what they desperately wanted the world to know they had to say.

It was beautiful.

When I left home I had to paint over it. I had to make it presentable again. It took 3 buckets of white paint.

But you know what?

Their words are still there. Buried beneath my whitewash. Hiding beneath the roller and hours and cussing. All of their words are still there. Their sentiments are still strong. Yes, they're buried beneath a couple of coats... but that doesn't render their message obsolete. That doesn't strip them of their intent.

It just means that sometimes you have to dig a little bit to understand what a room is trying to Say.

Life is a Room.

Don't paint over what it's trying to tell you.

Oh... by the way... The greatest quote someone once wrote on that wall was simple, crude, but incredibly to the point.

"You better live life wide ass open. If you don't... you'll end up living life wide ass open."

Paint can't cover up that truth.