Escaping the Gray
I remember one day a younger cousin saw a picture and said, “That’s beautiful!” I remember looking at the it and thinking to myself, “It’s pretty, but I don’t see anything beautiful about it.” That memory has stuck with me for years. I began noticing this more and more. I asked myself why aren’t things beautiful, amazing or wonderful? Why is everythiong just ok, good or alright?
About a year ago, I realized that I don’t have emotional extremes. Nothing is beautiful or amazing nor horrible or unspeakable either. My world is all gray, without much contrast. The same goes for my concept of “fun”. What exactly is “fun”? According to Merriam-Webster, fun is:
What provides amusement or enjoyment;
A mood for finding or making amusement;
Amusement, enjoyment.
Logically I know all of this, but it gets a bit more complicated because I do enjoy and am ammused by many things. What I don’t have is an emothional connection to those people, that event or place. For example, one summer my sister, mom and I went to Italy. My sister hung a picture of the three of us infront of the Collusium. Anytime I see that photo, I remember being there and that I had a good time, but I might as well be looking at a photo in a magazine. I have zero emotional reaction to it. It’s a very isolating feeling. I’m surrounded by people who I know and enjoy spending time with, but emotionally I’m always an outsider looking in.
Since this realization, I’ve been wondering why I don’t hve extremes and how do I change it. The other day a friend text and asked how my day was. I started to reply with my standard answer of, “It was alright”. Before I hit send, I paused and asked myself if is was really just alright. After a little thought (all logical, of course), I determined it was a good day by most standards. Not only do I have a hard time with emotional catogorization, but I’ve also developed a safety net of using broad gray words when describing things. Upon this realization, I erased what I had typed and retyped, “It was a good day.”
I remember my uncle once saying to me, “Mind your words. They have the power to lead your thoughts and perceptions.” If I truly want to experience a full range of emotions, I need to get away from my gray words because although not bad, they are limiting.
So… Cheers to more emotionally powerful descriptive words to aid in escaping my gray.
