I shut my eyes and let myself sink into the intoxicating swimming pool of my dreams. There I sleep surrounded by the secrets of the ocean, so vibrant and fantastic that I can taste the salt on my tongue and the scent of fish and sunscreen and sweat. And it swallows me whole like Jonah and the Whale, drowning me in a teal torture chamber. My body twisted and contorted around my sheets searching fervently for the sweet relief of slumber. But tranquility proved to be a futile hope as I succumbed to the pool party infested interior decorating nightmare, dubbed by Behr as "Swimming Pool Blue;" a horrific cocktail of vibrant pee-tinted kiddie-pools and unsightly Atlantic Ocean aquamarine. This is the living nightmare that I wake up to every morning, a technicolor ocean of oil based paint stinging my eyes from four walls.
If you had told the 12 year old me that within 48 hours I would grow to despise my paint choice, I would have never believed it. But when you're a kid, the choices that you make aren't always well thought out. Your rainbow eyeshadow, cartoon character t-shirts, and neon walls will never go out of style - until the next thing comes along a week later and your beloved stuffed animals and toys become stupid or uncool. The incessant tween me would have sworn that she would never change her mind about neon-blue paint and sparkly animal printed sheets and believed it with all of her heart. When you're a kid, now is forever.
Yet right in front of my eyes the watery abyss swallowed me whole and I took the plunge into the cold hard truth. Drowning my preconceived childhood ideas, I resurfaced at a conclusion that could have shattered my prepubescent brain - What you think you want one minute can change the next, and just because something is true now doesn't mean it always will be. You'll swear that something is forever, only to discover its mortality years later. Such a trivial thing as paint might not always matter, but nothing is the way that it seems at first glance in the real world. A botched paint job taught me the importance of picking my battles at the moment, doubting the permanence of even the most daunting and life altering choices.
When you're young, you're told that you can do anything you set your mind to and to never settle for anything less than your biggest desires. And I've done just that my entire life, fighting for what I want but always forgetting to question whether it's worth all of my energy and if it's what I truly want. I might change my mind at the speed of light or stick to an idea and never let it go, but at the end of the day, the most permanent thing in my life has been the vibrant power of paint. Sticking to my walls and shining through even the most incessant and determined efforts to cover it up, the very thing that taught me the lesson of impermanence is permanently plastered on my walls, drowning me in all of its fluorescent absurdity.
A/N: Just a little mini memoir-type-ish-thingie for who knows what reason. Comment what you think!
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Hyacinths and Biscuits
Non-FictionA collection of short stories/journals/one-shots/memoirs/etc. Most has been written from one clear moment of inspiration, I never write them because I feel I should, only when the words need to escape. Some are products of writers block, or previo...
