🌙 A Porch Light Essay
Tonight, I laughed until I cried.
And then, suddenly, I wasn’t laughing anymore.
Nothing about the room physically changed.
The same people were here.
The same walls surrounded me.
The same life I had loved only moments before was still mine.
But one moment touched an old wound, and just like that, the room felt different.
I think sometimes we imagine healing means learning how to keep painful things from entering.
Maybe it doesn’t.
Maybe healing is learning that when they do, they no longer get the whole house.
Tonight, pain came into the room.
But it did not erase the laughter that had already lived there.
It did not undo the joy.
It did not make the love less real.
It could not reach backward through the evening and steal the moments when I laughed until I couldn’t breathe.
The laughter was real.
The hurt was real.
Both were allowed to exist.
And when the room became quiet, I remembered:
The porch light is still on.
For much of my life, home and hurt were tangled together.
I am only now learning what it feels like to create a home where pain may visit, but it no longer gets to live in every room.
The porch light does not promise that nothing painful will ever find its way to the door.
It simply reminds me that, this time, I have somewhere safe to return to.
So tonight, I will not hand the whole house over to one painful moment.
The laughter still belongs here.
The love still belongs here.
The hurt can sit down without taking over every room.
There is room for what happened.
But there is also room for everything that happened before it.
There is room for the laughter.
There is room for the ridiculousness.
There is room for the ordinary moments that became memories while we were still busy living them.
There is room for the people beside me.
There is room for the life I love.
And there is room for me.
I am learning that healing is not a perfectly quiet house where pain never knocks.
It is knowing that I no longer have to give pain every key.
It does not get the whole house.
It does not get to turn off every light.
It does not get to convince me that because something hurts now, nothing beautiful happened before it.
Something beautiful did happen.
I was happy.
I laughed until my face hurt.
I looked at the life around me and knew, without hesitation:
I love my life.
And then something hurt.
Both are true.
Maybe that is what returning to myself looks like now.
Not pretending the hurt isn’t there.
Not letting it rewrite the entire night, either.
Just remembering:
This is still my life.
This is still my home.
The laughter is still mine.
And somewhere in the window, warm against the dark—
the porch light is still on.
Before You Go…
Has one painful moment ever made you feel as though everything beautiful that came before it suddenly disappeared?
Maybe, before you hand the whole house over to what hurts, pause.
Remember one thing that was true before the room changed.
A laugh.
A hand you held.
A moment of peace.
A small piece of joy.
You do not have to deny the pain to keep the beauty.
Both can be true.
And if you need a little time to find your way back—
I’ll leave the porch light on.
Until our next visit…
Take gentle care of yourself.
I’ll leave the porch light on.
With love,
Casey
Voice With A Purpose
Keep the Porch Light On Between Visits
If these words felt like home…
I’d be honored to leave an occasional letter waiting in your inbox.
Sometimes it’s a new essay.
Sometimes it’s a blessing.
Sometimes it’s simply a reminder that there is still room for you here.
No noise.
No pressure.
Just occasional words waiting for you whenever you need them.
I’ll leave a light on for you between visits.
