I am feeling very colorful this week. Literally. I am craving color. To be surrounded by color. To wear color and enjoy color. So much so that I have started revamping my hot-weather wardrobe, which is currently full of a lot blue (an electrifying and soothing color, depending on the shade) and adding instead shocks of yellow, red and even orange.
In less than a month, I will be entering a new decade of my life, celebrating one of those big birthdays that ends in “0.” Thinking back to my last turn-of-decade, I recall dressing in plain black, the absence of color, more suited for funerals. It was a beautiful dress, and it matched my mood – I had just left behind abruptly my life in New York and honestly thought my life was over. The grand plans I had created clung to for years – the hope – all disappeared in the span of a few weeks. Ambition had turned to restlessness, which finally turned to despair.
And so I dolled up the best way I new how, wearing the hues I had grown accustomed to in New York – blacks, grays, and white, all colors, yes, but not the ones I need now – to celebrate the turning of yet another year.
But here we are a decade later, at the end of the decade that has not been easy, but one that taught me so much. It gave me patience, as well as wonder and adaptability. I no longer cling to plans that do not suit me, and I no longer get depressed, so depressed, when things go awry. Instead, I’ve learned to allow myself to process the disappointment and then keep moving. Always moving. For with change comes pain, and with pain comes growth. And how I’ve been planted, how I’m growing. The stalks of my plants and the trunks of my trees have taken root, and now the colors – the flowers – are bursting forth.
It’s a new spring at mid-life. A new life. And I’m so excited to see what comes.
The Vibrant Depths 