All About You FRIDAY – True Color

I figure that the degree of difficulty in combining two lives ranks

somewhere between rerouting a hurricane

and finding a parking place in downtown Manhattan.

—Claire Cloninger

As a child, I was never a fan of mixing colors. It always seemed a bit confusing to me. Not only did you have to memorize color combinations, but if you got it wrong, then you inevitably ended up with something resembling mud.

As a result, I became a strong advocate for primary colors. I admired their purity. I loved yellow and red, but wasn’t a huge fan of orange. Pink and purple always seemed a little suspect to me. And don’t even get me going on pastels. I felt like a color should decide what it was going to be and then just stay that way. No matter what. Pure and simple. I know, I was an odd child.

I feel the same way about marriage. The joining of two hearts doesn’t necessarily mean the blending of two hearts. Think about it in color terms for a minute. Let’s say he’s blue and you are yellow. You fell in love with him for his strong presence and calming nature. He fell in love with you for your bright spirit and verve. You decide to join forces one day. Share a house. Share a bed. Maybe even share a toothbrush now and again.

It works as long as you stay true to your color. He might leave the toilet seat up and forget to cap the toothpaste, but when you look across the room and you see true blue, it reminds you why you fell in love with him.

Similarly, you might get cranky a few days a month, and burn his dinner, but when he looks across the kitchen and sees yellow, he just might feel like the stir fry is edible.

I think the biggest mistake people can make is to join forces and decide that means giving up who they are—changing colors so to speak. Or, perhaps, to put it more romantically, blending two colors to make a new one.

“In any relationship in which two people become one,

the end result is two half people.” —Wayne Dyer

“I just want to go down to the basement and pull out the box that was my life and bring it up to the living room and look at all the pieces,” a newlywed friend of mine said to me once. She felt like she had lost herself—the person she had become as a result of her journey was put away in the name of marital submission. It is a noble gesture, and one that is often at the center of the adjustment phase at the beginning of a marriage.

I looked at her thoughtfully and said, “What on earth was that box doing in the basement to begin with?” She smiled at me weakly. “He fell in love with you because you were yellow…”I added, “not because he thought you’d make a great shade of green.”

Thank God for solid friendships, because you can say things like that and not be committed to the psych ward. But you get my point.

Marriage is about unity—not uniformity. Friendships are the same.

The promise you made was to love and to cherish from this day forward. The people you love saw something in you that sparked their interest. Nobody said anything about getting into the paint mixing business.

Dance to the tune of your soul and don’t get distracted when another song starts playing. You aren’t the conductor. You are simply a note in a three-part harmony, and your job is to sing that note with verve and color. Your unique color.

That’s what they fell in love with.

It’s been a short but busy week. Don’t forget to celebrate…and let your color shine.

Until next time…