Living in Colour

Have you ever taken notice of colours? Like, really noticed them? How they can impact our moods with such subtlety that, more often than not, we don’t even realise it. Someone once told me that they resonate red with anger but, you see, red to me is when I feel most alive; or most sensual, but I suppose that’s the same thing. I say that alive and sensuality are interchangeable because I was once numb to emotions, and the only thing - only person - that could make me feel something was him.

He made me feel alive in the best and worst ways. Like his hands; they made me wonder how I ever went a day without being touched. They weren’t even smooth, they were rough from his trade work, and sometimes felt like sandpaper on mine. But I didn’t care; they were his hands and they were never empty. They would either be holding me, or they would be holding the flowers he’d surprise me with just to see me smile. The flowers were always the same; Marigolds. They became my favourite kind. They were a bold yellow; my happy colour. Sometimes they’d be orange and I think I liked them most because orange was a blend of yellow and red, and with yellow and red comes joy and romance, the two things that he so easily brought to my monotonous life. But you know how I mentioned he made me feel alive in the best and worst ways? Well, there were days where he wasn’t holding me or Marigolds, and even days where I didn’t see his hands. And on these days, I felt myself craving someone’s touch; his touch. I was so terrified of feeling numb again that I would find ways to feel anything at all. All parts of me would miss him. My skin would crawl, my breath would shake, and my eyes would almost drown from the tears that tried so hard not to make their way down to my trembling chin. I wanted to feel something so I felt this; longing, wanting, aching, a kind of pain that no pharmaceutical could mask.

I glance at the former orange flowers on my kitchen table that have turned an earthy brown. Somehow, they still look beautiful but in a more sombre way. The happiness and the romance that were connected to those flowers are suddenly gone and all I want is for the colours to come back. Maybe if the orange returns, so will he. Even if the brown changes to yellow, with no mixture of romance, I would be happy. I just need him, even if that means the only time we touch is when we hug hello or goodbye. I don’t need to hold his hand or feel it on my jaw as he kisses me; just one hug, even a handshake, is all it would take to make my stomach do somersaults. The most simple touch is all it would take to make me feel alive.

But colours do not always remain as we want them to. Like when the sky turns grey when we wish it would stay blue. Or when the pine we set aflame loses its fierce red and becomes black coals. Through monochromatic moments, we must remember that these shades do not need to hold such sombre meanings. The grey can bring us rain to listen to, or rainbows that make us wonder how we ever saw the world as something less than beautiful. The black can signal us to seek warmth in someone we love rather than the fire that is so habitually lit. If there is one thing I’ve learnt throughout my recent and most trying years, it is that we cannot continue to pay such close attention to the pain we feel when there is so much good kindly waiting to be noticed. After all, there is no darkness without light and I promise you that when you find that light, no matter how dim or how bright, you will live a more peaceful life.