You feel incredibly blessed with your current life and are very grateful to be able to acknowledge the privilege of living it. You grew up with a single father who gave you and your sister everything he could, but it did not start off this way. Before you  became a family of four, your dad was a teenager in Mexico, getting ready to leave his family and live alone in an entirely new country. His life was vibrant and colorful at the time, but if you had to choose one color, it would be green. He felt at peace, secure and motivated to make his parents see how green his world had become. Finally, he could afford to live his life and help them all back home. It was not long before purple came along — mom, they could not help but be together. Oh, what a distasteful combination purple and green make. So, mom and dad called it quits; that’s alright, you all move on from this. Fast forward, mom has a new husband, dad is with your sister, and you are neither here nor there. You have no color; your life is transparent.

You think you do not belong in either household, but you stay with mom because she looks lonely. You visit dad, but it does not feel the same; you feel as if you’re playing a role in someone else’s life. Your sister visits and you both play together, eat together, you even laugh and fight together but you are always an observer in your own life. How could a seven year old feel this way? You start realizing it will be more of the same and you feel like life is passing you by. So, you decide to do something about it. Excitement builds within you, you are finally going to be living your life. 

You settled on this life-altering decision on your own, but now your dad has moved away with your sister. Now they feel even further than when they were here. 1,227 miles further to be exact. You go from transparent to blue; life is cold now. You feel lonelier. Mom finally leaves husband number two, and you feel good it is just you and her, how you like it. It does not last long until you meet husband number three; he is a good guy, sweet to you and mom, but your active role in your own life is cut short. You go back to passively watching it go by.

 You are 13 years old now, and you miss your sister and your dad, even though you always felt distant from them. You visit them over break in San Antonio…so warm, how could there be so much sunlight in the winter? What a weird place. You decide to stay for some time. Maybe it won’t be so bad over break. Woah, when did you transfer to a new school? Make new friends? You kind of like it. You miss your mom, but ultimately decide it’s for the best that you made this choice. Husband number three will take care of her. He is friendly, after all. 

Oh man, you should have stayed to help mom … he is sick now. You visit, and he jokingly tries to make you stay out of kindness, “do not go back home, stay and live with us for a while,” he says. But, you hear something completely different, “your mom misses you dearly.” You continue to visit, but never more than two weeks at a time, believing the guilt will eat you alive if you stay there any longer. “Dad misses me; I should head back home.” So, that’s precisely what you do, you go back home to that warm beige city. It’s a soothing color you welcome into your life now.

You no longer crave the icy blue of the Midwest. It is too distant, but my god, how you miss that blue sometimes. Being an active participant in your own life is exhausting. When can you finally live in red? Red — eternally passionate … how fun would that be? Stop trying to live a different life, be happy with the one your parents sacrificed for you. The one they moved to a new country for. Left their own family behind for. You are now 22 years old and your world is pink today. Could you choose a more immature color? Pink? Those rose-colored lenses can’t seem to come off, though, and that is okay. You enjoy the pink, but some days … you still long for red.