Aynaia Barnhill "These Colors That Followed Me"

Blues, greens, purples and reds can all be color descriptives of the world we see today. Oranges and yellows can be our pallets of what we see as fall or those chilly fall nights that we fall accustomed to in the early Octobers and late Novembers. These colors in my world became bookmarks of my time like a book being held by those before me, slowly reading my book to themselves as a reminder of what passages I must overcome. I hold that book now as I am aware of the power and complexity I hold in the world, but these colors can take me to a time where I only saw blues or reds in my view as they are my bookmarks to my past times in life. Growing up as a black girl was already something as I was given the end of the plate that was life but I also have come to understanding that I am also queer and austic and all these parts have created colors in my book. Some of these colors can be high yellows that resemble dandelions in the late springs and some of these colors look that close to the night sky as the droplets of white that are the stars look like holes in a paper bag letting a small kitten breath. Depending on the time period in my life I can say I am the night sky or the stars that seem so close yet are so far but in this era I live in now I can say I’m anything my eye touches as my past experiences have come to help me understand that I am not just on thing but a divine being of many feelings and thoughts. My color palette of my life can range to many different colors that continue to grow as my days grow longer. I remember the blues era in my book. Spruce blue was a very common color for me during 5th and 6th grade as the mix of grey and blue made my days sad and repetitive which then became common to a bookmark in my book. I can still remember that dark navy blue that would bleed into my eyes creating tears of sadness as I was surrounded by my “friends' '. They were colors of white that would consume any of my new colors of life as I was not able to grow around them but only become smaller and smaller making me a small charm that they carried in their pockets. Insults and toture became my everyday thing as it was always bash in my face like a metal bat hitting a baseball. “You’re so ugly and dark.” was the first hit of the bat. “Are you a retard? '' was another hit as things I could not control became things I should be ashamed of. “No one really likes you here, just leave then” was the homerun as the cheers around that was the mockery of the laughs I would hear from them but why would I stay seeing blues when I could have just left them to see new colors well, past all that blue I seen pink. Pink, that pretty color that you see all the cute girls wear in movies and tv shows. Girls like Regina George or Aurora from the sleeping beauty as her grown glowed in my eyes at such a young age reminding me of the beauty I found to be so pretty and loved by me in my small little heart but with these two pinks there was difference, one being the holder of beauty and kindness I loved to me and the other being that of the evil I received from my “friends''. With Regina George's pink there was cute girls and wealth that coated over bullies and hate like gold over a fake ring you get from the cheap toy store but with Aurora’s pink there was true beauty that one could only get from self validation and acceptance of many that made eyes sparkle to people in the world no matter their size, shape, color or anything that made them who they are in there own book filled with bookmarks of colors. The pink that made me stay with the navy blues and dark times would be Regina's pink, that rose pink that was never truly given to me as a token of friendship or love one gets from a friend but a lead. A lead like a worm left on pole for a fish or a lead like the circles hamsters run in to forget that they are caged and will never escape. This lead for me was just a trap or something to make me stay as it came in many different ways. “You look nice, today” would leave me with false hope of true friendship as I see pink in the corner of my eye waiting to drown me in what I always wanted or “I like that you do this to your look rather than all that other stuff you do”. These pinks were never there but all made up in my head to make me stay. This is why during my 5th and 6th grade my bookmark contained blues and not pinks because the pink were never there to begin with but only hallucinations of my desperateness to want that true friendship. Looking back at this bookmark I can sadly say that this blue stayed with me till about 7th and half of my 8th grade year as past those bookmarks I understood that in order to get these falling off pinks I had to take it by becoming a better me and finding myself. So, I started to re-read my book to understand me and what created me into today. I look past the blues as I was so common to that color that my vision of life just became that. Now I understand that I am many colors, I understand that I can be pinks and reds and oranges the same vibrant color of tulips or even blues. Those same blues that tortured me for so long that now have come to be understood as points in time where my life seems to be down and bad. I understand that its normal to have blues now and then as sadness is not a foreign feeling but a human emotion that should be celebrated and comprehend but after all that blue facing me in my dark times I then see those colors that symbolize my passing of a new day like a sunrising being seen in the far horizon that then comes to be morning. That is what makes me get up from all my fails, that is what makes me make my own colors for my book and that is what makes my vision of the world polychromatic to so many beautiful colors because I know at the end I will always see a new start to my pallet and another page where I can then place that undiscovered bookmark that can range from color, I will have to be the one to chose.