Life is revealing new spectrums of colour

GOING outside was probably the best, worst, most wonderful and horrific idea of my life. About two years ago, bright little me decided to expand my horizons, and ever since I’ve been struggling to keep up with the flurry of emotions that have come with all of these broadened horizons.

The new people I have met have given me experiences I‘ve both adored and despised. For a little while there, I stopped reading, because the stories within my own, real life had become much more invigorating to me.

While giving my bedroom a well-needed spring clean, I stumbled across my old diary from wa-yyy back in 2009.

It astonished me how simple some of my thoughts and experiences were. I had few friends outside of my family and spent most of my time playing Pokémon or writing letters to famous people that were never, ever, going to reply.

Now, however, writing has become much more difficult. My thoughts are not as in order as they used to be. I seem to have just figured out why; I went outside. And it pretty much messed me up.

Previously, I lived in this monochrome world where I could clearly distinguish feelings and understand events, without sweating my 11-year-old head about it.

However, by going out and joining groups or attending summer camps, I’ve met people, of all kinds.

And my spectrum grew, spreading from just black and white to reds and yellows and greens and blues, filling my world with all the colours I had only previously found in books.

But I’ve been given darker colours too; shades of black and grey I didn’t know about, and could have done without. Now, I hear names that feel like a stab to the chest, or music that seems to set fire to the blood in my veins. I hear a word or a phrase and I connect a person to it, and in that moment, a simple connotation can make or break me.

People, incredible people, have done this to me. They have given me so many colours, too many, and now the canvas has been tossed aside and the walls are being decorated with my thoughts.

This unfamiliar palate has left ugly blotches on my painting, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to make the end result as beautiful as I can manage.

My challenge is to understand this spectrum I have been given, and as I encounter new colours I must figure out how to incorporate them into this nonsensical mess that has become my life.

As my tastes change, some shades will be left behind, and new ones welcomed. But unless I’m careful, I’ll end up with more blotches than brush strokes.

My other challenge is to make sure that I myself do not become a blotch on someone’s painting.

I would much prefer to be a teeny tiny ladybug in the corner of a painting, than a horrible grey blob in the middle.

Wish me luck.

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