I sit looking at the pristine white of snow falling gently. The world covered in pure whiteness catalyses thoughts of the intensity of color over the past year. Deep, rich hues streaking through my life. Vibrant reds and oranges of heartbreakingly wonderful love; deep turquoises and mauves of heartwrenching loss; inky blacks of depression and pain that swallow you whole; trudging browns and a return to the whiteness of detachment. It’s enough to make a girl want beige for the first time in her life. Eclipsing love sank me into the never-ending blackness of pain. I needed that time to find my feet again. And I’ve begun to tiptoe gingerly out of the abyss. Here I am, finally feeling a bit more steady, a bit as though I’ve come out the other side. If nothing else, it was a gorgeous smattering of colors, a kaleidoscope of emotions that dazzles me with its beauty. I feel a bit like a rag doll, soaring through the sky, the Universe (always on target) smashing me with paintball after paintball, each one sending me soaring, spinning, reeling. Each one, a new explosion of color, so bright and intense that I want to shield my eyes, I want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head, remain there in the safety of the dark forever. But those colors prove too enticing, and although I almost got lost in that safety, I always crawl back out, back for more.
The colors, the emotions, the experience of it all. Get too caught in it, and it can break you. Step too far away, and beigeness sets in. Neither is the place I want. I want the freedom to soar through the vast expanse of colors, I want the delicious joy of watching it all unfold. So I’ve come to rest in a place of gratitude. Gratitude for the beauty of it all, for my ability to dive into it and feel it wholly, achingly deeply. Flight through and out and back into the colors, dipping, diving, soaring. Such is life.
