it's just paint.

When we moved into our house 12 years ago, I was a big fan of Trading Spaces. And sage green. I'd never owned a home before or painted a wall. I carefully chose the living room color to match my couch (a color called mochachino) and a happy yellow for the kitchen because it has a deep blue tiled counter. But the rest of the house I just went with what I liked.

Which is how I ended up with a minty green bedroom that didn't look like sage at all with a deep purple Trading Spaces inspired accent wall.

And I pretty much hated it for 12 years.

The wall was supposed to be kind of like a headboard. But I didn't measure and it turned out that when the furniture got there the bed and nightstands didn't work on that wall.

Ooof.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have stopped as soon as the first wall started to dry and said, "wait! I don't like this color." Because it wasn't sage at all and I knew I would't love sleeping in that room.

But I didn't say that. Because we were only going to live there a couple of years. And then 12 passed by and we never repainted.

It's now this really gorgeous gray and I hope the people who will buy this house and make it there own magical home feel serenity in that room.

Of course this is more than just a story about paint colors. It's really about listening to your gut and asking for help and the ways we get trapped into old stories and how sometimes the change we need is right in front of us but we just can't seem to shift enough to make it happen.

My new house is painted in shades of blue that feel like an invitation to take a deep breath. I went about choosing colors in a totally different way. And some might say there's too much blue. But gosh I feel at home.

But that's not really the story either.

It's really about how sometimes it takes 12 years of stuckness to realize you've been free all along.