My childhood was orange

My childhood was orange.

It was the orange Banana Boat sunscreen bottles I kept close for reapplication because the plump, pale parts of me that my tankini swimsuit couldn’t hide burned so easily in the Southern sun, making the beach both embarrassing and exhausting, so I avoided the place most kids in my town hung out.

It was the orange Fiskars scissors my mother constantly had in her hands for all her arts and crafts projects that she encouraged us to help with and my sister was so creative and technically skilled and I was not, so it made me feel insecure and I’m too much of a perfectionist to make art just for pleasure.

It was the orange cropped cargo pants I wore my first day of middle school that I loved until the popular girls laughed at them, but at least they hid my unshaved legs, which the girls ridiculed even more in gym class, so I sliced myself shaving that night and I never wore those pants again but I kept them for years.

It was the orange clay caked on my cleats, my clothes, in my hair from every softball field in Florida where I spent my weekends, working towards a scholarship I’m not sure I ever wanted, playing for coaches I barely respected, spending all my time with girls I don’t remember liking much.

My childhood was orange, an objectively happy color that I don’t like looking at, but can’t explain why.

My college years were red.

They were the red scratchy uniform I wore on game days and the clingy dri-fit I wore at practice and the baggy shorts I wore in the weight room and I hardly remember wearing anything that wasn’t issued by the athletic department or that felt comfortable on my body.

They were the red nail polish I painted on my own hands to secretly imagine I was a femme fatale and that I painted on the hands of my teammates because my fatal flaw back then was believing enough manicures could be manipulated into meaningful friendships.

They were the red sangria, the cheap screw-top kind that ruined wine for me after I blacked out and started rumors about my friend and came home and cleaned my room and when I threw up straight Carlo Rossi on my Swiffered floor, I flew into a rage and blamed my roommate for making a mess.

They were the red flush in my cheeks when all my friends confronted me for betraying their trust, but the boy they thought I slept with knew I was still a virgin and the girl they thought I kept secrets from knew more than I did, so my pride set fire to bridges and I lost the friends I had changed myself to make.

My college years were red, a strong color that always reminds me of when my commitment to my convictions was weakest.

My twenties were gray.

They were the gray athletic department sweats I wore to my grad school classes even after I was no longer a college athlete and finally had time to dress myself in anything else, but was unsure of what to do with my body when it wasn’t being used as a tool, like a machine.

They were the gray rug, gray quilt, gray pillows, gray sheets I bought when I moved to a new city and wanted to start over with a clean slate, but I wasn’t ready to claim an identity quite yet, so I primed my canvas, which would be painted and repainted many times over.

They were the gray three little dots on my iPhone under the name of the boy I thought I loved, but the dots only appeared at odd hours and never transformed into the words I wanted to hear and yet I wasted so many hours of so many days of so many years before realizing how colorless he is.

They were the gray deck of the aircraft carrier-turned-museum where I met my partner who has been battered by so many of my storms, but has weathered me unwaveringly ever since and somehow has always had faith that once the clouds part, my tempests will beget a rainbow worth waiting for.

My twenties were gray, a neutral color, but there is nothing neutral about me and everything about that feels natural now.