The Color Red

I used to be very shy back in the day. I was a quiet and serious child. I was fearful to express my interests to those around me. Most of all, I was afraid my family and friends would tease me for having unusual interests—I wished I was I was relatable to the other girls in my classes.

I had a few friends growing up, but even with them, I was masking who I was so I would be perceived as more….palatable.

There are of course deeper reasons as to why I felt and acted this way. I understand today that part of my inability to connect with others was partially self-inflicted.

I was a wallflower in every sense of the word.

I was also growing up in an unhealthy environment my where self-esteem was routinely the butt of the joke. My dad liked to tease me for being a skinny kid with big feet and bad posture. I am not certain if he found it fulfilling to put me down and tease me, but he did it often enough.

My brothers were pushed to follow their dreams. They were given a few more tools and resources than my sister and I.

I can only speak on behalf of what I was taught and told by my father. I am not sure how my sister was treated, is treated by him. But he would often insinuate that I was just average. Average intelligence, average appearance, average overall skills.

I am from a very nice neighborhood in a very high achieving part of the state. I went to a very competitive high school. Being “on top” was a value instilled in me at a young age. Objectively, I had a very good GPA, but it was surely not good enough for me to be considered a smart student.

I was never expected to be “on top”. My dad told me to marry rich, and that was my only hope for being successful in life.

My favorite color historically was cornflower blue, like my eyes.

It was not until I was about twenty-two years old when things started to change.

I was at my first job out of college. My job was to work with our incoming clients, get to know them and to make them more comfortable.

It was an elderly couple that came in one day and I was assigned to them.

I smiled at the wife, I asked her what her name was and I asked her some of my usual initial warm-up questions. She would not play ball with me. I was struggling to process why this woman was being so incredibly rude to me.

She told me to get the hell out of her face, rather aggressively. I was not expecting that reaction, so I walked outside and I cried.

After about five to ten minutes of pulling myself together, I was horribly embarrassed to return. But once I wiped the tears off my face, I swore to myself this would never happen again in a professional or personal setting.

It was not until I read Anthony Bourdain’s first book, Kitchen Confidential, that things made sense to me.

I believe in that book Anthony Bourdain explains that all chefs get broken in the kitchen. You must be broken before you are great.

Bourdain explained that when he was a new chef in the kitchen, he was yelled at by someone very intensely. Not exactly the same but his experience reminded me of my experience in a way.

Moving forward from then, my favorite color was red. I wanted to embody everything the color red emulates: power, strength and passion.

I am a work in progress and I will never be finished with myself. I like it that way.

That occurrence was a little under a decade ago. This woman has no memory of me. But in a way, she helped me.

Moving forward I gradually grew strong enough to voice my opinions, dissatisfactions, and frankly grew a backbone for myself.

That was the first and only time I have ever cried at my job.

The passion and voice I learned to express was always inside me. But I was no longer afraid of the repercussions. It is not the popular move to stand up for yourself or others at times, but I am okay with the discomfort those conversations create.

My work is often in black and white, but I live in vivid color. Specifically, the color red.

I am the color red.