The Shade That Found Me

One cannot help but notice how a single shade has managed to command centuries of devotion, terror, and desire. Red, A color so simple, yet it carries more weight than one could imagine. It is the blush of love, flushed across cheeks and blooming in roses left on doorsteps. It is the burn of anger, sharp as fire, reckless as a storm. Red warns...stop signs, flashing sirens, the sharpness of blood spilled when caution has been abandoned. It is danger and desire, warning and welcome, war and worship.

Red is the thread of fate whispered in folklore, binding souls unseen. It is celebration like the lanterns, ribbons, and wine raised in glasses. It is also mourning, the wilt of lilies in a graveyard, petals too bright against grey stone. Red is passion, but it is also panic. It is the pulse in one’s veins, alive and unstoppable, reminding us that we are mortal, reminding us that we are here.

And yet… some among us shrink from such inevitability. Some will avert their eyes from the boldness of red, retreating instead to muted shades that whisper rather than roar. Why? Perhaps because red demands honesty, and honesty is not always kind.

that is why I have hidden from it.

I must confess: life, in its unkindness, has led me away from myself. Circumstances... those twists of fate no one chooses, pushed me into shadows. And I, instead of fighting, let fear and anxiety build walls around me. They dictated who I became, deciding for me what I could and could not do. Slowly, I abandoned the pieces of myself that once felt whole.

Yet, even in shadow, one finds their ink. Writing has always been my thread and still somewhere between truth and performance, I lost my way. My words, once written for the joy of creation, began to dress themselves for the approval of others. I mistook applause for purpose, and validation for value. A most grievous miscalculation indeed. even when everything else slipped and so, even in my words, I was no longer free.

But now, slowly, I return. Not perfect, not entirely healed, but lighter. I remember that I began to write not for the applause, nor the whispers of others, but because it saved me. Because it was fun. Because it gave me back a voice when I had none.

So I write again, not with expectation, not with fear, but with honesty. I write for the sake of creating. For the joy of putting thoughts into the world and letting them live there. Not all of them are deep. Not all of them are grand. But all of them are mine.

And perhaps that is what red has been trying to tell me all along. Not that it is only love, or only anger, or only warning but that it is life itself. Loud, imperfect, unavoidable.

I may not wear red often. I may not always have the courage to claim it. But still, in some quiet way, it claims me.

therein lies the true scandal: that no matter the silences we keep, no matter the masks we wear, life has its own way of painting us red.

And isn’t that the mystery of it? No matter how one hides, the shade always finds a way.

Yours in ink and intrigue,

-R.C.