I love pink. And if it is pink AND sparkly, I love it even more. My friends and family tease me about my "pinkness", especially when it comes to my pink hockey gear, but it never bothers me. In fact, I usually can poke fun at myself while im tying my pink skate laces or putting on my pink hockey socks and gloves, so its all in good fun. But last night, as I was putting all my pink gear back in my pink hockey bag and grabbing my pink phone, i started thinking about where this love affair with all things pink began...
I got married for the first time very young. I had never really had a serious boyfriend before, and I was barely 19. I spent the next several years completely losing who i was to try to make a bad relationship work. I gave up everything that made me who I was and tried to change myself to please someone else. By the time that marriage ended I couldnt remember anything about me- I didnt know how to shop for clothes for myself, what foods I liked, what I liked to do for fun, what kind of books I liked to read, or even what kind of tv shows I liked. I had no politcal views of my own, no religion i felt strongly about, i didnt even have a favorite song! I had spent all the years that a person normally learns all those things about themselves following someone else and doing whatever they told me to do, or what they wanted me to do. I was so determined to make a broken marriage work because I thought that that was the only thing I could do, I didnt even notice I had become just a shell of a person. I first started to realize something wasnt quite right the first night I met my best girl friend, Suzzie. I went over to her house because my air conditioner had broken. My husband was deployed somewhere at the time I think, and I had my 2 little girls. I had met Suzzie briefly before, I really cant even remember where, and had somehow gotten her number. I called her and asked if we could come visit to escape the horrible Texas heat, and I packed the girls up and headed over. Really, what I remember most about that night is laughing. I hadnt laughed that hard or that much in years and I still clearly remember how good it felt.
I hung on to that marriage for a few more years after that night, the whole time letting more and more of myself slip away. When the inevitable finally happened and that marriage collapsed, I felt like a kite that had been cut lose- I was fluttering on the breeze without real direction, just lost in the wind. Suzzie and her husband Carl made room in their home for me and my daughters and really rescued me from myself, I dont think I would have made it very far without them.
I really was a mess for a while, I had no clue what to do with myself, and I think at times I acted more like a rebelious teenager than a responsible adult. But somewhere in that mess i had become, and with the help and support of my friend, I started to put the pieces back together. For some reason I found myself amassing pink things- clothes, dishes, knick knacks...just about anything I could find. I liked it and it was the first time in a long time I had liked something just because I liked it and not because I thought someone else wanted me to. I remember at one point while getting ready to go to a concert with Suzzie and Carl, I had asked a friend to come help me decide what to wear and pack. When she opened my closet, she just laughed and asked me if I owned anything that WASNT pink.
When I met Justin, I was fully in love with all things pink. It only took me a couple of dates with him before I knew that this man would be the one that I would spend the rest of my life with. Being in love scared me. I didn't want to lose myself again or forget who I was. I was proud of the strong woman I had become and the role model I was for my young daughters. But what I found in Justin was someone who supported me and loved me just as I was. He never asked or expected me to change who I was. He encouraged me to try new things and didnt mind when I disagreed with him or didnt like the same things he did. As I became more comfortable with myself, Justin, and our relationship, my pink obsession softened a little. Its not nearly as bad as it once was (because at one point, I was actually looking into having my car painted pink!), but I still love pink. For me, it is a reminder of who i am and where I have come from. It reminds me of strength and independence and love. It reminds me that who I am is good enough and strong enough. And it reminds me to be me.
