27 June 2006

My Life in Technicolor

It's been 17 days since my grandmother took her last breath. I am... well I am not sure what I am right now. I miss her more than I can ever express with words and I'll never be able to cry enough tears. I have no regrets and I will not fish for any either, although doing something that silly is well within my character.

I have not been able to accomplish much since then although life has continued to go on and I have been able to get things done. The sun still rises and sets at standard times. I wake up, go to work, cook and clean and try my best to be a good daughter, sister (in-law), aunt, niece, cousin and friend. I have been able to keep up with my half-marathon training and guitar practice and I have been able to see positive results from both.

It's just that with all of this, I still feel so lost in a grey fog. The color is gone from my world sometimes. If there is one color that has a permanent stain on my world it is red. The color of anger, the color of love, the color is faded and flat and has no dimension anymore. For so long I felt I have lived in emotional extremes, much of my world could be placed in black, white or red, those were the colors of my existence. When I turned 28 last year however it seemed my eyes finally began to see the bright light of the spectrum clearly for the first time.

Oddly enough, the first color to come was blue, I was depressed but it was not a deep, dark lonely corner of depression, blue held hope. There was the hope of change. Hope brought yellow, a color associated with brilliance and for me the presence of God. And although at the time I was running away from it, I still felt the presence. The existence and more importantly my acknowledgement of that presence changed the white of solely existing to a white of purity, cleanliness, the ability to be ready for use. As time has continued to go on and I became a caretaker I saw the green of growth, I could grow. I had to grow, I had to change because I was needed in a new capacity. Since March of this year there has been another marked change and this is a big one for me. I believe it will have to be gold because it is a radiant color and confidence is a quality that affects not only me but those I am around. The most important quality that I have attempted to seek once again is what allowed me to see the hope of change. I think this is red, a new red. Of course I am referring to love. I appear to many as tough and hard-nosed, uncaring. But if you really know me you know that within me flows this great love. I have tried to deny it and run from it. I have been hurt by it and wanted to turn my back on it and get as far away from anything so related but alas I cannot remain "lost" forever. I think I have officially lost this battle on being lost, but I digress.

The color in my world right now, the joy that it has brought me, especially in the last six months is so hard to see right now. It's like I've had my eyes dilated with that solution. I am aware that the colors are still there, they have not gone anywhere but they are fuzzy, blurry and hard to distinguish because it's as if they are all attempting to overpower the other. Grief is, I suppose all of those colors competing for attention... I don't know. But I will not give up, I will go on, I have to. There are few things in this world that truly bring me joy, but knowing that my grandmother has finished the race, that she finished the work and has claimed the reward of a faithful servant, that brings inexplicable joy. I will continue to color my world and overcome this lurking darkness.

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