Live life in...Color?

I recently had my colors analyzed for my birthday, and the result was surprising. I was all but sure I was warm in color, like I like to think my personality is, and soft in tone. Oh boy, was I wrong. As it turns out, I am in the deepest and boldest color season: I am a winter. Winter is filled with clear, bright, and deep colors – the colors I’ve tried to stay away from, colors that make me feel seen. Instead, I’ve been donning colors that mirrored how I felt: subdued and washed out. Don’t get me wrong, I still think these colors are beautiful, and they do some skin tones justice. They just don’t do me justice.

Looking back, I don’t think my choice in colors was a coincidence. They reflected what was going on inside me at the time. I needed to go unnoticed and unseen, and these diluted colors that washed me out were the answer. They were the soft femininity I was aspiring to reflect in my life; they were the modest, toned-down answer to my need to look quiet.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should maximize ourselves or be loud or make our presence known. I have no intentions on doing those things or going against the quiet, meek presence that is instructed in the Bible. But my intention at the time was to disappear. I was wounded, criticized, traumatized; I was broken and I didn’t want anyone to look at me. I even tried to start a drab capsule wardrobe (not that capsule wardrobes are drab – I would still like to successfully put one together). At the time, I wanted to sterilize myself. After all, it was what we were taught to do at the church we had just left.

If you were to take a look at my wardrobe before I gave myself over to such teachings as the ones we encountered at our previous place of worship, to which I was subjected in hours-long sessions of singular teaching, you would notice it looked more like my seasonal color palette. I have wondered so many times recently if that young woman has disappeared for good. And I wonder who she would be today without the abuse she gave herself over to. But all is well that ends well.

The other day, as I was showing my husband one of the new outfits I bought in my color palette, he said something interesting. Of course, he told me I looked good, because he’s smart. (And yes, he’s honest. I know this because he will tell me when it doesn’t look good, whether I like it or not). But he also said that I looked present. Not just good, not just brought to life, but present. And my presence was the very thing I had been trying so hard to diminish for years. So people wouldn’t notice me and everything that was wrong with me. But, no more. This was the push I needed to embrace a new beginning and put down that desire to disappear. After all, it’s very hard to not be seen when you’re wearing a bright fuchsia shirt, and fuchsia looks good on me.