From Mauve to Dusty Rose
Same color, new name
Hello Friends,
You might be feeling a bit heavy today; I know I am. Sometimes this world doesn’t make much sense. If you are up for it, I found this nuanced conversation productive. In the meantime, I hope my little ramble on the color mauve brings some levity to your day.
If you’d asked me last year what my least favorite color was, I would have emphatically, and with a bile taste in my mouth, said mauve.
When the kids ask why I hate the color so much, I tell them, “The ‘90s,” as if gesturing to the entire decade will explain everything.
Case in point…
Anyone over forty will recognize these curtains.
They didn’t quite get it until a few months ago when Peyton started watching the original Full House.
The carpet! The curtains! The bedspread!
When I was around eleven or twelve, my mom let me redecorate my bedroom. First, I fell in love with floral patterned wallpaper with, you guessed it, mauve flowers. I latched on to that color and ran with it, saturating every inch I could. I had a brass trundle bed with a two-tone mauve bedspread, mauve sheets, and mauve bed pillows.
Honestly, I don’t know how I slept in all that busyness, but I loved it.
My taste changed, and mauve faded along with my memories of DJ’s perfect hair, Stephanie’s lisp, and Michelle’s “You got it, dude.”
Last year some friends threw me a baby sprinkle, and I was showered with the most adorable baby clothes, all with some shade of mauve, only now it was re-branded as “dusty rose,” which I whole-heartedly endorse because the word “mauve” is almost as cringy as the word “moist.”
At first, as a trickle and then a torrent, the color formally known as mauve was splashed all over the nursery and infiltrated my wardrobe. Sometimes I look around and wonder how many shades of mauve can fit into one room.
Maybe I just wanted to show off a cute picture from Tatum’s first days. I scroll through these pictures, shocked by how much she’s changed. I look into her eyes, which can’t quite decide what color they want to be, and wonder if she misses her big brother. I tell her, “I do too.”
This is where I am today. Thank you for listening.
xoxo,
Emily
Your Journal Prompt for Today
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