When I was growing up, I loved the color blue. I wore blue jeans and blue T shirts. I painted my bedroom blue. I never tired of looking up at beautiful blue skies or seeing the Blue Ridge Mountains when we went on road trips.
At some point, I stopped liking blue. Eventually, my color preferences dwindled to mostly low key neutrals because I knew they matched and didn’t stand out.
My wife was different. She brought color into our lives. I leaned into this and welcomed her joy, vibrancy and colorfulness.
When she died, all the color drained from my life.
That didn’t change until I failed on my road trip and settled down in Raleigh to build a new life without her.
Bit by bit, I’ve been adding color into my life over the past 3 years.
And recently, I fell back in love with blue. I have sneakers with neon blue stripes, socks with electric blue highlights, navy shirts and deep blue sweaters.
I use a lot of blue in my paintings.
I’m going to paint my house dark blue on the outside someday.
I keeping my eye out for faded blue clothing the next time I need a shirt or pants.
I spent so much of my life focused on “achieving my goals” around career, money, stability, solving problems, and security that I closed my eyes to the colors all around me.
I’m happy to report, that’s no longer the case.
