Feeling Blue

Today in class I proclaimed that I hate the color blue. Now, I recognize how bold and brash that statement can be.  It’s a big statement to make, just like proclaiming hatred towards Chinese food or proclaiming hatred towards math. Proclaiming hatred towards one individual object, idea or category of some sort is kind of messed up. Hate is a powerful thing to feel. It’s a “big feeling” as we describe it to children in the education world. Maybe rushing into class late as always (because my professor cannot seem to grasp that his class is not my only obligation each morning) and slightly aggressively proclaiming to the world that I hate the color blue was intense. But let’s rewind for a minute and relive this:
              Sophie and I walk into class 6 minutes late, after rushing across campus.  The stairs kill me, I’m out of breath, I’m irritated that I’m late, I haven’t read because I fell asleep before midnight (gasp!) and I know I’m about to fail the reading quiz (Sorry Dr. Hanrahan, I really do try to read, but the body wants what the body wants). I adjust the chairs so that I’m not smothered by the people around me because I’m #caustrophobic and I throw my bag down.  Dr. Hanrahan compliments the blue and yellow I have going on today. The correct response would have been to say, “Thank you, the weather made me want to wear a bright color today, plus it’s letters day so I get to wear letters today!” and then go about failing my reading quiz like a normal college student. Nope. Instead I blurt out something about how I hate the color blue, attacking everyone in the room who is wearing the color blue or likes the color blue. Just like Fey says, “I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.” I don’t like blue but it doesn’t mean it is wrong for other people to like the color blue or wear the color blue.
               I have synesthesia. Colors make me feel things.  It makes the way I perceive colors way way way more intense than it needs to be. I won’t spend time going into what each color is, and it’s not like you make think. Yellow is not “happy” and red is not “angry”.  Blue is not “sad”. Black is not “mournful”.  I put them in quotations because feelings are so objective.  They’re not the same for each people.  I wanted to take this blog post to apologize if I offended you with my abrasive comment regarding the color blue. I don’t hate all blue colors.  There’s certainly quite a few versions of blue...but I digress. If you want to hear more about my synesthesia, corner me and let me tell you some stories about my very interesting experiences with synesthesia.