Crayola Colour Mood…

Much as I wish it wasn’t, my current Crayola Colour Mood is… Grey. Just Grey. Plain. Dull. Bleak. Quiet. No fancy name on this one, friends. A blunt name for a blunt colour.

It’s been a hard few months. A hard few months which have left me feeling deflated, grey, less than my usual self. A hard few months in which I have seen more hurts and disappointments than I can bear to think of. A hard few months which continue, despite my best efforts to leave them behind. A bad day became a bad week, a bad week became bad weeks, bad weeks have blurred into one seemingly endless, grey stream.

This week saw the death of another friend (friend, partner, parent, person), less than a month after diagnosis, leaving those of us in close proximity little time to try and understand what was happening, let alone prepare ourselves for it. Another loss. Another absence. Another one who will never make it to 40. As I grow older I realise more and more how tenuous all of our grips are on this life and how easily it can be snuffed out, without our consent or acceptance.

Life is hard. Its pathways are paved with grey. No matter how they twist and turn, that grey tinge that mars so many of our days and nights is never fully left behind. It is through small outbursts like this that my writer’s mind can try to process everything that is happening. So forgive my grey words and my recent silence.

Yet as I write this, I realise grey is not always bad and bleak. Think of a pavement, grey and smooth, when the last rain has fallen and the cloud ebbs away to allow a glimpse of sunlight through. What was dark, dingy grey becomes a twinkling, shining grey, and suddenly, there is hope.

Elloise Hopkins.