Real Talk: Thinking & Loving in Color

Photo by the amazingly sweet and talented Emily of Gem Photo

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret: I totally love Taylor Swift. Other than her "Never Getting Back Together" jingle, I find her songs quite adorable and relatable.  I'm a country girl at heart, I'm telling you I think I was supposed to live in the South where the people are sweet as pie, the songs are twangy and the tea is coming out the wazoo.  Have you heard Taylor's new CD yet? I don't think there's a more perfect song to sum up me, my life in the last few months and just my personality in general. 

You see, as a design-enamored soul, I think in color, my world is focused on bringing color to life, and my brain operates best when there is color surrounding me. In fact, I memorize things very easily if they are color-coded.  Sometimes when I think of people, I associate colors with their names, faces and personalities. I play a game in my head where I try to guess people's favorite hue before they tell me, just based on their personality.  It's a little weird, right? Can anyone relate?

While in interior design school, I've been able to take many classes related to color and the psychology behind certain hues. It's proven that blue is calming and unappetizing, purple brings serenity, green promotes growth, yellow gives us energy {and really upsets babies if they're in a yellow room for too long!}, and red...well, aside from making you hungry, red makes your heart race. A shade of scarlet truly causes your heart rate to skyrocket. It's the color of love & pain, both the same.  In her new hit song, Taylor compares colors with her last love, and I couldn't relate more. When I wrote this post about my recent break up, I should have beat her to it and wrote this song instead.

Lately I've been thinking about what it looks like to live life when it isn't as it appears on Style Me Pretty, and being completely and totally okay with that.  As a young woman surrounded by design, weddings, blogs of women who tell their love stories and share their pregnancy journeys, I find myself so badly longing for it all.  You see, when you're in a serious relationship and you think that is precisely where life is heading for you and then it is so suddenly broken, you are left with uncertainty. What you feel like you're left with is a whole lot of nothing, but in fact, I've found it's quite the opposite. While loving that guy was red like the song says, I think growing more in character, trusting God through this time and being so entirely excited about my future is like a bright melon or peachy orange.  To me it's the color of excitement and warmth, one that brings enthusiasm and hope. And I have a lot of hope.

So if I could add to my girl Taylor's lyrics, I'd add a little orange in there, just for good measure. So we'll make this post a part two to the post I wrote a few months ago, letting you into this part of my life again. It's amazing how God meets you right where you are; how He picks you up, reconciles your pain and heals your heart when you feel like you can't go on.

Thoughts on the above are welcome- the part on color, love, the broken heart part, the God part, or even the country-music-loving part. Any and all :) And yes I mean all. Last time I posted on this I received a few interesting/insensitive anonymous comments, but I left them up. 

That's is where my mind has been lately. You also now know what is on repeat in my car. In case you haven't heard it, here's the song:
 
 Have a happy, hopeful and exciting day- no matter your circumstances!
Love,