It's not your mess, but it's your living room

Trauma is someone pouring red paint on the floor

in the middle of your living room..

You see the mess it has caused;

it's not your mess, but it's your living room.

So, you clean it up.

It's a lot of work to clean up red paint,

and it takes a lot of time,

but your living room is back in order...

Months later, you notice an adjacent wall is speckled

with small bits of red paint that you missed..

You try to ignore it,

but an old friend comes to visit, and they point it out.

So, you clean it up.

Perhaps a few years down the line when you've just

installed new curtains for your living room,

you push them to their respective sides

to let in the warm, natural light.

Your eye catches a speck of red paint on the window pane.

You can't understand how that initial splash of paint,

from all of those years ago,

could have reached the window.

Even though you have never noticed,

it is undeniable that the red paint has always been there.

So, you clean it up.

And you are confident that the red paint is gone for good

More time passes,

and you find yourself playing with your child in your living room.

They crawl under the coffee table and announce,

"Hey, there is red paint under here!"

You are ashamed that you never thought to look for red paint

under the coffee table,

and that your little one found it before you.

Removing the red paint becomes more important than ever before.

After all,

this will be their coffee table one day.

So, you clean it up.

@emyardy