Pink Associations
A discovery this week: My competence, attitude, and motivation at work are directly related to how much sleep I get at night.
Yes, I have many MANY things to do.
No, I do not feel like doing them.
Why?
Because it takes brain power and energy - two things I am lacking, considering that I have averaged about 5 hours of sleep for the last two nights.
Now, this might seem like a lot to the average joe, but for me... being preggo and all... it's not even close.
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Going to Highlands this weekend with B. I'm really praying that it will be overcast and cool - but not rainy. You see, there is not too much to do in Highlands besides hike and shop - two things that include the outdoors (yes, I do count walking between stores as time outside).
And seeing as how my body temperature is about 13498245489.0 degrees hotter than the air temperature, I think I might die if it's as hot as it has been this past week.
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I was going to make this entry somewhat of a to-do list over the next 3 days... BUT... I don't feel like reminding myself of how I have overbooked my entire life right now.
So, instead, here is what has been on my mind lately...
Pink.
No, not the singer (if that's what you call her), I mean the color.
I don't like it.
I never really have.
(Bear with me. I DO have a point. I PROMISE.)
Until my senior year in highschool I REFUSED to buy ANYTHING pink. That year, it became quite the popular color for men's and women's clothing alike. I couldn't walk by a store without seeing a PINK window display.
And so I gave in. And I claimed that I no longer had a problem with the previously-distasteful color.
But now, I look at my wardrobe, and I own two pink items. Both are wraps or shawls or whatever you want to call them - one hot pink and one light pink. I bought both of them for weddings that I had to match (because I was either singing or directing) and I have only worn one of them a couple times since then (mostly to more weddings). The other has sat in my closet for almost a year.
And my little secret? If I meet you for the first time, and you are wearing pink. I automatically don't like you. And I honestly can't help it.
Then, the little baby girl comes along. And I tried - I mean REALLY TRIED - to like pink, for her sake. Every little girl deserves a pink princess room, right? Every female should be able to start her life feeling beautiful in pink lace.
So I searched high and low to find a room I could live with. And what did I find? A mostly white room - with a little pink here and there.
And even that "dream" (if that's what you call it) was short-lived.
This very evening, I am going to paint red cherries on her wall.
I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do pink.
The thought of 3am feedings in a primarily-pink room made my stomach turn.
And this is my curse, I suppose, and what I have been thinking about for the last 24 hours or so.
And here is why I have been thinking about it... *warning* a rabbit trail is to follow... but I PROMISE it WILL curve back around....
I had lunch with my mom yesterday, who is taking a developmental psychology course. She was telling me about "Baby Albert." This was a baby whose mom had to be hospitalized for months after his birth (a stroke, I think). So this professor and his assistant took the baby home to care for it. During the infant's stay, they did harmless, reversible tests on Albert. During these tests, they would pull out a white bunny and show him. Harmless enough, right? BUT each time the prof would pull it out, the assistant would CRASH a loud symbol behind the baby's head. Then they moved to a white blanket. The same thing. A white shoe. Any white item they could find. As you can imagine, the child began to associate that color with terror. And so, eventually, they could just show him the color, without the symbols, and the baby would shriek in horror.
"And it came to pass" that Albert's mom got out of the hospital sooner than expected; so the experiment was never reversed.
Years later (because no one else knew about the tests) Albert had to seek professional help because of his intense anxiety over the color white.
Interesting, no?
But, as you can see, it got me to thinking about why oh why I can't stand the color pink.
And here is my theory.
My first memory of the color (and one of my first memories ever) is lying on my bed for an afternoon nap. My baby brother in his room next to me. The attick fan is rumbling, causing my pink curtains to blow in the breeze above my head. I had just turned six, I think. And as I lie under my pink bed spread, looking at my pink curtains, while the afternoon light filts across the pink wall hangings, lamp, rug, etc... I hear my mom in her room crying. And I hear her and my dad talking. And I hear her say, "Then just go to her."
And I knew he was leaving. I didn't know "her" was another woman. I thought he was going back to live with is mom. Such is the innocence of childhood, I suppose.
But the principle was the same, he was leaving. Mom was crying. I was confused.
It wasn't much longer after that when I sat on his knee as he told me he was leaving.
I haven't thought about that moment in a very long time - lying on my bed listening to my little life fall to pieces around me.
But as I lay in bed this morning, thinking about those pink curtains, I realize: that, perhaps, is the reason I CANNOT give my daughter a pink room.
Somehow, protecting her from that color can protect her from that moment, I think.
I know it doesn't make sense.
And I probably won't ever talk with anyone about it.
If they ask why I don't like it, I'll just continue saying, "I'm just not a girly girl, I suppose."
And as I think about all this, and I think about the little white and red room that my little girl will be brought up in, I have on prayer for her: That she will like red when she is older. Because that would mean that her memories of that little room, and her time there, are full of happy moments, that she never had to watch her red gigham curtains blowing in the breeze while listening to her mother's heart break. God, protect her from that.
Wow... this was more intense than I thought it would be... I'm gonna go back to work now.