The Color of Childhood

The Color of Childhood

When the color was taken away, I was still a child. Nine years old, innocence still clinging to me like a comforting blanket. The rooms of my childhood house had been bright with color. Moss green covered the walls of the living room, evoking the jungles and forests of the books I read to conjure images of the world beyond my small sphere. Vivid coral warmed a little kitchen where I sat on weekends with plates of fluffy waffles doused in maple syrup, all a comfort to me that I never thought I would lose. The formal dining room, where I seldom got to eat but still found to be a lovely space, wore ochre gold from floor to ceiling, magnifying the brilliance of the sun’s rays when they filled the house with their undying warmth. I grew up in the embrace of wonderful color, my memories painted in these shades that rivalled those I’d seen on the canvases of even the best artists.

That year, I received the news that we were moving to California. This comforting house, with its green shutters and colorful rooms, would be lost to me once we vacated it to make way for this next phase of our lives. In all honesty, none of it felt real to me until the rooms were repainted in shades of cream. Our realtor had said this would help us sell the house, so the vibrant walls were concealed by lifeless tones without personality or distinction. I remember walking into the kitchen after it had been repainted, barely able to recognize it for the safe haven it had always been. Eggshell paint had drained it of all its beauty, leaving a drab and uninviting eating area that felt nothing like the one I’d previously known.

Green and gold became pasty white slabs within which I was expected to go about my life. Though I tried to keep living within this space, my heart told me this wasn’t home anymore, not really. My surroundings felt cold and distant, unrecognizable as the quaint home I’d spent my entire life in. When everything I loved was being taken from me, I no longer had the option of taking comfort in my warm childhood home. Only this pallid sepulcher greeted me each morning as I woke to another day.

After we left Texas and moved to Poison Oakley, I really did lose everything. Even though it took time for things to truly unravel and scar me deeper than any pain I’d known, I can still trace it all back to standing in a colorless house feeling my heart weep at what it was losing. That was the moment my childhood became devoid of color, forced to take on the somber shade of a world without mirth. Never again would my life be the same.