Gray Can Be A Beautiful Color

All or nothing. If I can’t have exactly what I want, I don’t want it. If they only have breaded onion rings instead of battered, forget it. I’ll spend hours searching for the perfect album to fit my mood, only for my mood to change.

I have strong opinions on just about everything: politics, culture, books, art. It’s actually a quality I tend to like about myself. However, when it comes to the truly important things like friendships, my work, or my relationship with myself, black and white thinking hurts.

For instance, I’ve always loved to write. I do it nearly every day. I’ve written a lot in my life, but nothing was ever good enough. I was never good enough. And if I can’t be perfect, then I don’t want to be.

At least that’s what I used to believe. There are many things that add up to allowing me to love the gray. Time is the biggest one. My prefrontal cortex being fully developed and years of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy also don’t hurt.

Some of my favorite things are gray.

The sky on a rainy day.

Silver jewelry.

The ears of my senior dog.

I even seriously thought about dying my hair gray because I find it so gorgeous on older women, but it’s way too expensive to maintain.

My friend asked me recently if I missed the intensity of my feelings in my early 20s. Though it has its place in my life, you could not pay me any amount of money to go back.

I’ve found life to be more satisfying and bearable in the in-between. Nothing in this world is 100% anything, including myself. I may not be all good, but I am also not all bad.

Last week I met a European politician who came to France as an Algerian refugee in his childhood. In an increasingly divisive and divided world, he told me how he sees it all.

“Gray can be a beautiful color.”

And I couldn’t agree more.