The Color Pink

You are born with it,
a kind of label placed upon you.
A girl, pink.
The color pink.

Just look inside a children's  bedroom,
a girl's, of course.
Everything is pink,
completely pink.

As a little girl, I had a room like that too.
My bed, curtains, closets, and walls,
everything dressed in that color.
The color of a girl.

I loved it,
my favorite color,
everywhere around me, and so beautiful to me.
How proud I was to be a girl.

Surrounded by things in my favorite color,
I spent my time wrapped in pink.
Until that day came,
a day every girl has known.

A girl, proud in the thing that made her happy,
walking dressed in pink.
But quickly, everything changed.
"Pink is girly, I don't like pink, it isn't cool."

From that day on, pink was no longer my favorite color,
my room no longer felt like my safe place,
and I no longer thought it was wonderful.
Green became my new favorite color.

It all had to go, every trace of pink.
It wasn't cool, it was girly,
that is what they would think of me
if I loved
my old favorite color.

From then on, whenever someone asked me,
"What's your favorite color?"
my answer was green.
Everything that had once known pink,
I traded for green.

It felt exactly right.
Somewhere in the middle.
Not girly pink,
but not boyish blue either.

Just green.

My pencil case filled with pens and pencils, my favorite shirt,
and the name written in every friendship book,
all carried
my new favorite color.

Slowly, my room changed,
from my safe pink place
to one painted in something else.
Somehow, I felt better.
Tougher. Less girly.

And still, I was one,
a girl.
One who longed for pink,
but could never admit she loved it.

As I grew older,
the color I tried so hard to avoid,
because of the label it had been given,
began returning to my thoughts.

Somewhere, I longed for her,
for the feeling pink once gave me.
The happiness, the pride I felt wearing it,
I wanted it back
the older I became.

I began to understand that pink
carried a feeling with it.
One I had always felt,
but buried because of the weight of it all.

The pride and happiness,
the color pink.
Once my favorite color,
and deep inside, it had always remained so.

I realized it had never truly been about pink.
Never had the thing that brought me joy
turned into insecurity on its own.
It was never pink's fault.

The feeling I carried,
as a little girl,
did not come from the color pink.
No, not from her.

It was being a girl,
becoming a young woman,
that gave me the feeling I had missed all those years.
Missed so deeply,
because I had focused on pink.

The label given at birth,
that pink belongs to a girl,
is not something ugly.
It is something beautiful.

Though it carries pressure too.
To love the color
that had always been my favorite.
Everything around me was pink,
after all, I was a girl.

A girl
who loved pink.
And so did I.
How deeply it comforted me.

It was never about the color.
It was about being.
About being a girl,
one who loves pink.

I love pink,
and I am still proud.
Not because it is my favorite color anymore,
but because I am a girl.

A woman.

Someone who loves pink,
but is not pink.
Someone who does not love something
that defines her.

I am proud,
happy, and after all this time, surrounded
by her color,
the color pink.

I am more,
we all are.
We women are more,
more than pink.