As I reflect back on the main colors of my life, I am just beginning to meet a new pair.
They have been slowly reaching for me. They have known me for years. Streaming through the blood of my relatives, cream and crimson are seeping towards me across the family tree.
They have been watching. They have been planting thoughts in my head.
They wanted to meet me in May, last year. I let them reside in my inbox, open but unanswered.
I ignored them.
I met them in October. As my fingers leaped across my keyboard, eyes scanning my screen, cream and crimson sat grinning in silence. They watched the confetti fill my screen as I paid $65 and pressed submit.
Cream and crimson barely know me. I barely know them.
Through the screen, they leaped, inhabiting my thoughts. They urged me to type the all too familiar name as I scoured their website, falling more in love every day.
They watched, comforting me as other colleges told me no. They reminded me that they wouldn’t say no. Cream and crimson bided their time, waiting for me to realize.
Then they were gone, behind a cloud of murky grey. I thought about them often but refused to let them break through.
Until they did.
I felt cream and crimson stretch across my family tree into my own skin and bones. The murky grey was gone.
Cream and crimson barely know me. I barely know them. But I have never been so excited for another color of my life.
On Tuesday, I realized the impact those two colors would have on my life.
As I walked through my home for the next four years, I felt an overwhelming sense of excitement. I knew I was set on spending my college years there, but I didn’t understand the draw of cream and crimson until I found them closer than my computer screen could ever bring me.
Everywhere I looked, I saw beautiful buildings and trees and history in every brick. Crimson and cream coated the tulips, reminding me exactly where I was. When it came time to leave, I found a feeling I don’t think I can ever explain. It was sadness and excitement, but also the feeling that I was forgetting something. It didn’t feel right to leave.
I am just beginning my relationship with the next colors of my life. I always knew there was another school, another town, another state waiting for me. I never knew where it would be until cream and crimson found me.
In just four months, I will be moving in with cream and crimson.
I will be sitting in my dorm room, surrounded by cream and crimson, remembering all the joy that I have been brought from the previous colors of my life. They are colors that will always be with me.
I’m waiting in nervous anticipation for cream and crimson to join the palette of my life as I get to know them at Indiana University Bloomington.
