96 - Color Rush
When I close my eyes I get to watch the inside of my mind. It’s really beautiful in there. I wish you could see what I see. I think that is why I draw so compulsively, because I am trying to get it out before I lose the image. There are so many different colors that come rushing in all at once. And words too. Sometimes they make sense. But other times they are totally random. Like, ‘a petal in the sand’.
That line repeats over and over again but I have yet to figure out what it means. When I was younger I felt like I was drowning in all the vibrant colors of my thoughts. It made it extremely difficult to hear what anyone was saying. In high school everyone always said that I lived in the clouds. Many tried to help me come back to reality. I tried too. But nothing ever worked.
In college I was examined for what I thought was a learning disability. I was diagnosed with ADD. The doctors gave me a little blue pill, that promised to solve all my problems. The first one I took dulled the colors. I could actually begin to hear what everyone was saying. Life felt so much easier. Not only did I no longer feel like the stupid one in class, I felt brilliant. But as you might imagine, one pill was never enough. I spent most of my life feeling slow and now I was moving really fast. So the prescriptions got larger and larger until I was thoroughly over medicated and completely colorless.
Anger started to creep in. Slowly at first but with enough time it came on full force. There had always been a sassy side to me. But it was paired with something more gentle. I lost that gentle side completely. I lost myself too. Yet I fit into society so perfectly. I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I was exactly what everyone needed me to be, quick, smart, and fast moving. I was also very intense. I excelled at my job. And I was miserably depressed, deeply lonely, and didn't even understand that feeling fulfilled was a possibility.
I was following this expected path but I was traveling so far away from myself. From what I really wanted. So far away that I didn’t even know what it was that I wanted. So I kept moving until I hit an edge so hard it gave me whiplash. Because to live this way is to live within walls. And my heart couldn’t take it any longer. It began to beat so fast that it threatened to explode if I didn’t make a change. I had no choice but to stop taking the blue pills. I was terrified. I didn’t want to go back to the dreamlike state I used to live in. But the colors didn’t come back all at once as I had expected. I had changed. And slowly they did start coming back in. But I paid attention this time. I learned how to observe them instead of getting over taken by them. I discovered they were all little messages and ideas just waiting to be explored. I realized what I had been missing all along.
Now almost 2 years later I can’t believe I ever tried to dull this sensation. It is by far the most interesting thing about me.
-sas