First...I need to tell you that I have chosen my one word for 2010....and this word has been a LOOONG time coming...in fact, I really never thought that I would get to a place in my life where I felt like I could or should or WOULD focus on something this indulgent...but, LIFE IS MEANT TO BE ENJOYED, NOT JUST ENDURED. I have spent so many years enduring enduring enduring...choosing my yearly words like BRAVE and COURAGE and ENDURE and BELIEVE...and those words helped me so much...but now I feel like it's really time to lighten up....and I KNOW that life is not going to be a piece of cake...that there are still lots of rough times ahead...but I am going to do my very best to sail through difficulty as joyfully as possible, and try to convince as many people as possible to join me in the enjoyment of their lives...and I am going to work very hard to ENJOY....to enjoy my days, hours and minutes...all of them...as much as I can...my word for 2010 is:
Now, on to my battle and ultimately my love affair with YELLOW.
Some time last year, I went to a class about personality types with my niece, who is also one of my very best friends....when we sat down and started reading over the materials...and the types of personalities that were categorized into colors........she said to me...
"you are definitely a yellow."
I read over the description of a yellow personality and said....
"oh no, I am not a yellow!"
and she argued and argued with me, laughing like I was the one who had lost my mind...looking at me in such a bewildered way and asking me why I didn't think I was a yellow....I mean, she has been by my side for most of my life...through every step of this crazy journey, she really does know me, and I know her.
"I am NOT motivated by fun, and I am not a fun person....and look at all of the other stuff it says, that is so not me!"
she cocked her head and looked at me again, like I was nuts....and laughed a little again....
"you are totally a yellow....yellows are good!"
FOR SOME REASON....this whole conversation made me SO ANGRY...SO SO SOOOO ANGRY.
well, I took the test, and here is what it said at the end...
CONGRATULATIONS! You are a YELLOW!
YELLOWS are motivated by FUN. They are inviting and embrace life as a party that they’re hosting. They love playful interaction and can be extremely sociable. They are highly persuasive and seek instant gratification. YELLOWS need to be adored and praised. While YELLOWS are carefree, they are sensitive and highly alert to others’ agendas to control them. YELLOWS typically carry within themselves the gift of a good heart.
YELLOWS are happy, articulate, engaging of others and crave adventure. Easily distracted, they can never sit still for long. They embrace each day in the “present tense” and choose people who, like themselves, enjoy a curious nature. YELLOWS are charismatic, spontaneous, and positive; but can also be irresponsible, obnoxious, and forgetful. When others interact with you, as a YELLOW you respond to them best if they take a positive, upbeat approach and promote light-hearted, creative, and fun interactions with you.
Understand that no two YELLOWS are exactly alike. Although you share the same core motivation as many others, your personality is still unique to you alone.
WHAT THE??????????
Then I was really mad....like really. really. really. mad. In fact, I think I made up an excuse and left early. I went home and took the test online again. I made my husband take the test....I got more and more upset, inside.....I was confused and bewildered and just flat ANGRY. ....so weird. I actually, in all of my embarrassment to admit it now, spent a couple of weeks crying about this...I called my sister and said...THIS TEST SAYS I AM A YELLOW...and she said "Of course you are a yellow!"
Ok...this was roughly around the time that I was hiding out from the world (well, ONE of the times)....I went back and read my blog posts to try to find a picture and found this one....this is how I was at that time...far from yellow...this was in the Spring...after we were sure that Marq was ok...and after I thought we could just walk back into our old life, but when we returned from our "intensive care unit"...it was almost 5 years later, and the whole world had changed....I WAS NOT expecting this....this was a really weird time. I could not figure things out, could not figure myself out...now that I see this photo, to me it says....."stay the H away from me" Interesting that the border I chose to put above myself in this photo even looks like razorwire.....
I remember when I posted this blog post. Words were failing me. I was SO THANKFUL that those long years of illness were over, but I feel like I walked into another challenge of starting over. I was happy and incredibly grateful, relieved...but me, my soul was fragmented...I REALLY THINK THE REASON I WAS SO ANGRY about being proclaimed a yellow....was because I had actually resigned myself to being a black&white&gray.........I really felt like I had found my wings again....(read my post here about how I was certain that I would never, ever fly again, I felt that all was lost) YOU WILL FLY AGAIN (please read this if you are struggling...I just read it again a year later and I PROMISE that you will be glad you read it) I wrote this about a year ago and it is so interesting what has happened since then, and that this photo above I posted, I had wings...but I sure didn't know where the heck to fly to....everything had changed.....all of the trees were taken by other nests...there was nowhere to build our nest...I didn't know any of the birds anymore...I was absolutely jaded, a little bit angry still, a little bit bitter (though I did my best to hide/stuff that all down and had to confront it later in the year)
BUT THEN I GOT A WAKE UP CALL
YOU ARE A YELLOW.
I still tried to prove to myself and everyone else that I was completely healed...and now more of a solitary soul....an introvert, that I would be happiest if I stayed in my cave and that while I really loved people at one time, I just really didn't want to ever be around people again....and that I would be ok if I just stayed behind my razorwire, thought serious thoughts, did serious things and behaved in a serious way...it totally makes me laugh now, but I really was thinking this was the way it was. I was a black&white&gray and that's just how life was.....and it was ok...I could fly in black and white........and hide out.
I found some pictures of Marq and I........in an album about us...we used to have SO MUCH FUN...evidence that we really ARE FUN.....I just forgot about it for a while...I used to throw really fun parties and I used to do really fun things..........that is PART OF WHO I AM....it is NOT LOST!!!
My sister Kathy and I talked a lot this year...she is so gentle with me...she would say things to me without trying to convince me or tell me I was wrong...she would say things like "you need to have some more fun..." "how about if you start taking Mondays off since you are working on Saturdays...make them just a fun day..." Then, when we started Brave Girls Club.........our slogan somehow became "LIFE-CHANGING FUN FOR WOMEN" We started planning REALLY FUN things that had serious content....it was all disguised and restored gently....and before i knew it, I started painting in yellow, buying yellow clothes and being yellow.....I hardly noticed it was happening.
You know what occurs to me now, that I didn't realize AT ALL before I started thinking about it this week, because it has all happened so gradually....is that I REALLLLLY did, even though I was doing SO MUCH BETTER than I was before, I REALLY DID BELIEVE that my best years were over, that the fun was over, the old me was gone and that now it was time to be serious.....to put all of that fun stuff away.....that there is NO VALUE in fun....that FUN IS NOT IMPORTANT...and that I had important things that had to be done. I was still stuck on survive....when what our maker wants for us is to THRIVE. He wants us to live in all of our colors...OUR TRUE COLORS.
I was telling my sister the other day when we were making our vision boards, and mine was wildly colorful and fun and happy....like all of my art is evolving into....that when I look at my art now, and listen to myself talk on the phone, and look at the doodles in my notebooks...I think..."geeez, I am really getting to be obnoxiously happy......"
When I made these pictures of myself for my 2010 vision board....I just laughed the whole time....they felt so real and awesome and Me.........and maybe even obnoxiously happy...but this is really how I feel right now...FINALLY. Not that I have changed....but that I have been RESTORED to who I truly am. And, I am a yellow.
I hope if you feel fragmented and in shades of gray that you are ready to live your life in color again.....
Sweet photoshop skills....LOL...it was all for FUN....and for my sweet 2010 Vision Board....
I do forget things, and my enthusiasm can be obnoxious......I can not sit still, ever....and I am easily distracted. I have worked hard to overcome so many of these yellow weaknesses....but I am never, ever ever EVER again going to apologize for being a YELLOW. I am ready to embrace life with fun and excitement. I believe in the future...I know that no matter what is happening, no matter how hard or painful it is, that joy can always be found somewhere inside of it. I know that I was MADE this way, and that it is totally OK...it is good! I am ready to fly like a little yellow butterfly who finally figured out how to flap her wings.....
And...like I said..this has been SUCH a long journey...so so long. If you are in a place where you feel like you will never have or be fun again, where you will never have more good and joyful days than bad, or where you have lost parts of yourself and feel fragmented and distant from your soul...please read this post...because I KNOW YOU WILL FLY AGAIN! We were ALL born to soar........life is meant to be enjoyed...and I AM READY!!!
AND I AM SOOOO READY to have so much fun with anyone else who wants to have fun too! We have so much planned for the Brave Girls Club blog and my own personal products....that will really truly be LIFECHANING FUN FOR WOMEN!!! So, COME ON...COME HAVE FUN WITH ME!!!!!!!!
xoxox
melody
P.S. My last miracles post will be tomorrow.....and called "Life's Currency".....and will include some wonderful angels on earth who wrapped up this year in such a pretty little bow for us........people are so so so sooo good.
xoxoxo
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