Wednesday, May 10, 2006

color

My favorite color is purple - big surprise I am sure :). My blog is mostly purple, I am wearing something purple in my avis, 95% of the pages I do about me involve purple. I just really like purple. For some never adequately explained reason, this bothered the heck out of my family when I was a child. "Oh of course you chose the purple shirt." "Purple again?" "How about some other color than purple?". It's not like my wardrobe was all purple. I don't really recall have much of anything that was purple clothing-wise, because they always stopped me from getting it. My room was pink or peach (I never really had a say in what color it was) & I don't remember having many purple toys. So I am not certain where this idea of theirs came from. And I often wonder if they would have said it if my favorite color was pink or green?

This "Oh why not choose something other than purple, you have so much purple already." mentality stuck with me until I was 37. I would shy away from buying things that were purple because I had 'so much' purple stuff anyway. Then when I was pregnant with DS2, so soon after DS1, I went through my clothes & packed a bunch up & gave loads away. And I noticed something.... 90% of my wardrobe was green, black or blue - the colors I prefered when I wanted something other than purple. 3 out of 5 rooms in my house are green. One is blue & the other a pinkish grey (and they were painted those colors by the previous owners). There are some small purplish flowers in a wallpaper border in my kitchen, which is green & white. My folks commented "I see you got your purple in there." huh? So where had this myth that everything I own is purple come from and what do my parents have against purple? I never have gotten a straight answer from them. The fact that I liked wearing a particular purple dress when I was 3 seems an insuffient explanation for 35 more years of anti-purpleness on their part.

So I started buying things that were purple & telling that part of my mind that warned me against it to shut up already. I am not going to wait until I am an old woman to wear purple. I am going to do it NOW. (though I probably will not wear a red hat with it)

6 comments:

Maggie said...

We teased my youngest sister because she went through a "purple stage". It seemed like everything she owned was purple. But when I started remembering my earliest memories, I remembered that purple used to be my favorite color. I still like purple now. And my niece is going through a purple phase as well (along with green and blue).

Glynis said...

Well written, Stacey! We should never let other people decide things like that for us--you go and wear purple whenever you want!!

Meg said...

I love "anti-purpleness"! What a great word! This is a funny and thoughtful post. Very incitefull!

Wear your purple with pride!

ArtcTrish said...

Ha! Big surprise! Something about purple when your little..my dd loves it and pink!

loonyhiker said...

This was so cool! It's amazing how one little story when you are little can "color" your world when you are older! This was a great entry and I enjoyed reading it!

heather said...

I loved your entry. It's funny, I wrote that I had a lavender bedroom and I hated it!! Purple must be a love or hate colour :)