The Yellow Door Life

Even after nearly 4 months, much of my life was still in boxes and after having a rather uneventful first Christmas in my new home, I fell into a post-Christmas funk and needed to feel productive. 

The box of that day’s unpacking was a mish mash of financial papers, batteries, cords that charge God only knows what, and you guessed it, a colored pencil. Black to be exact. 

I took a break from unpacking the box to take a shower and decompress, only to come out to find my Mom distraught over not being able to find a set of drawing pencils my Dad had given her. 

An argument ensued, as it does when two women who are so sick of grief collide over the aforementioned grief and the silly pencils that chose to remain hidden, when my Mom so desperately needed them to be found. 

Between the argument, telling one of the five dogs ‘no’ for like the 1000th time that day, and tripping over the damned box which still had my infernal wedding dress packed in it, AGAIN, I was done. 

As an angsty 2000s teenager trapped in the body of a 30-something, I retreated to my desk, put my headphones in, and blasted music. I started picking through the box with all the papers again and pulled out the black colored pencil. 

I had been wanting to sit down with one of my adult coloring books for the last week, but never seemed to find the time. I grabbed one of the coloring books on my desk. I’ll just color it all black, I thought. I laughed it off, of course, but then thought, why not? 

I flipped through the pre-drawn designs and landed on a page with intertwining hearts. How poetic. Let’s color all the hearts black. And I did. Each heart had a center section and I decided to color every single one black.

As again, my angsty teenage self would muse, the black was symbolic of: 

A void full of all my fears and doubts. 

The engulfing darkness of the unknown. 

The sheer absence of light in places that are not meant for me.

The grief and worry and pain that I carry in my heart.

The literal stress on my heart from a disease I didn’t ask for, but allowed to come to be unconsciously. 

Color it all black. 

I was not, as you might imagine, listening to Hawthorne Heights at this point, but it would have been perfectly brilliant if I was. 

As I colored, I started to remember how much work staying in the lines is, in coloring, and in life. We do everything we can to keep on a straight path, without error, but it’s just not possible. 

My hand ached and I became frustrated as it became harder to color. The pencil needs to be sharpened dummy. 

Begrudgingly, I sharpened the black colored pencil and resumed my work, only to find how much easier the process was. 

Then a thought dawned on me, life is like a colored pencil. Go with me here.

We go and go and go until we are so worn down that we can barely function, and only then do we care about self-care and taking a rest. The problem is if we had just rested (sharpened) all along and throughout each day, we would have never hit such a low low. And the beautiful thing about colored pencils is even if you break them, you can sharpen them and start over again.  

Sharpen. Color. Breathe. Repeat. My new mantra. 

Once all the black was filled in, I inevitably opened up my box of colored pencils and fished out some other colors to finish my work. 

Red. Yellow. Purple. Green. Blue. All the colors which inspire me in their own way. That have their own meaning and purpose in this life. 

When I was finished, I looked at my completed work and realized how a blank page in a coloring book can become the inspiration you need.

When inspiration strikes, obey. (Also a good mantra). 

I get why kids start with coloring, naps, and snacks (healthy snacks of course ;)). These things are just meant for us. And gold stars. Kids, and adults alike, deserve all the gold stars because coloring and adulting are stinking hard.