Color in the Lines

Lately I've been doing a lot of arts and crafts. I've been coloring non-stop with all my favorite sharpies and have really improved on my bubble letter skills, but I'm still not very good. But, I've been pushed to the very edge of my artistic limits. See, I've been working on a project since August that involves coloring at least 18 different items. Each of these items must also be unique. Normally I wouldn't be so determined to make everything look so good, but I have an actual artist in my group doing similar work. Because of her, I want everything to look amazing.

Flashback to first grade. I owned the 64 crayon Crayola box and my classmate right next to me owned the 96 crayon Crayola box. I tried so hard to get all my pictures to look like hers, but it couldn't be done. She was using all the crayons that weren't found in the 64 crayon box. It wasn't even that she was a better artist, but she had more opportunities and more options to work with. And now having graduated to markers and sharpies years and years later, I've realized I am just no artist.

Recently I've learned a lot about the perspective of the world and how people approach what they're viewing. My artwork might not be a concise as the girls' next to me, but I've put just as much emotion, or maybe more, into it as she has. The world may view her artwork as better or more skilled, but with background information, maybe someone may realize the perspective I had trying to do similar work. The world doesn't have the same viewpoint about everything, so there is hope for my artwork. There is hope that one day, it might be just as regarded.

"You're stooooopid"

I used to openly tell people I was a "dumb blonde". It was a good ice-breaker and it was useful for those ever-so-frequent embarrassing moments. I always thought that it was better to be more on the average/stupid side than smarter because some people just didn't like being around smarter people. Now, when someone calls me "stupid" or a "dumb blonde", I get really self-conscious. Lately, I've been nervous that I've represented myself as naturally an unintelligent person when really I am pretty smart. But I was just a kid back when I gave myself that label, right?

Little children call each other "stupid" all the time. I heard it in my old 3rd grade religious education classes, the open enrollment ultimate Frisbee club I'm in and in the hallways. Children are told not to call each other names or be mean, but do they really understand the implications they might be having on other people's lives.

When someone told me I was "stupid" or a "dumb blonde", I laughed it off or tried to embody it and then surprise others when I did something smart later during the year. Does a child's simplistic look on the world and people in it, shape and create who we are that early in life? No matter how hard my mom tried to tell me I really was smart, I just kept the dumb blonde label because I made more friends and that's just who I was to people.

Simplicity can be great when you run into a rough problem or situation, but maybe simplicity hurts more than it helps in this situation. The greatest thing about growing up may be that we can re-invent who we are.