It's Over, Now What?
Congratulations, you've wanted to break up with your wall color for quite a while. You may or may not remember the moment you lost that loving feeling. Possibly, it was never there at all. You entered the relationship knowing it was because it was easy, and you were tired of looking and not finding true love.
Like trying to find true love, the quest to discover the right paint colors is filled with hope, needs, and expectations—bias, deception, betrayal, and heartbreak. Sound familiar?
You've spent countless hours scrolling late at night on Pinterest, much like Bumble or Tinder, pinning right and left through hundreds of room pictures, splitting hairs over the nuances and differences between them, trying to find the right one.
Then you see one and agree to meet the color in person at the paint store. If there's attraction, you take it home, test it on different walls over several days, and introduce it to your friends, hoping for their approval or confirmation that what you see and how you feel about this wall color is true.
However, the lack of confidence in yourself to instantly know if it's true love, coupled with a general lack of trust in paint colors that, like catfish on Instagram, change by the hour, makes it nearly impossible to be confident of your future with this color. Troubled by the uncertainty, most people settle for innocuous wall colors, safe enough to be ignored or trendy enough to not be judged.
On the other hand, you are done settling. You don't know where to look next. What you do know is that true love exists.
You've been around these relationships in real life at least once. True love relationships feel far from perfect but remarkable in every way. The people in it bring out the best in each other and profoundly enjoy each other's company in unpretentious and deeply fulfilling ways—baggage and all.
By default, they bring out the best in everyone else whenever they are around.
It's the same with colorful affairs that last a lifetime!
Growing up in Puerto Rico in the 60s was as dreamy as you imagine. I lived surrounded by a limitless sense of color, early historical landmarks, and coast-to-coast international style. This is the color baggage I brought to the Pacific Northwest in the 80s.
Needless to say, I stood out like a lime-green thumb. I gravitated towards coral reds, lime greens, and aqua in a world dominated by hunter-greens and cranberry reds, defying cultural norms, trends, and climate.
Once I became a homeowner and a stay-at-home mom, walls became edges to a universe I could control with color. I found myself rummaging through garage sales, trying to find bits and pieces of avocado greens and burnt oranges to take home, and I started to mix wall colors to go with them because I could. I embraced my mother loving color baggage and filled in those edges. From the inside out, bringing out the best of what I loved in light of what I wanted!
This didn't mean my way or the highway. I wasn't trying to be different. This was not an act of rebellion but a connection, a powerful exercise in self-love and learning to own my baggage.
What could have been a culture and color clash became a personal mission to make 'myself' at home. There was no room for pretense in my bag but plenty of room for new colorful memories, experiences, and relationships.
I created color relationships that rose above trends or conditions that felt inclusive and inspiring. Rather than right or wrong, good or bad, trendy or unpopular, my color relationships aligned, contrasting without conflict, and harmonizing without monotony. If a new color walked in through the door, it would be welcomed.
A genuine attraction and a strong sense of connection filled my environment with a deep understanding of worth, no matter how expensive or cheap things were, in a way I didn't want or need anyone else's approval.
What happened next was remarkable.
My contemporary fusion of Puerto Rican culture, personality, and Pacific Northwest colors ignited the minds and hearts of others, seeking the confidence to become a palette of their own!
This is what I've learned about people's 'color baggage' from over 4,000 paint projects over the last two decades: 'Trends are mass-produced, but people's memories, experiences, attractions, and desires are custom-made. We can't afford to be anyone else.
The color choices we have to make are different from the ones we think!
I JUST CAN'T SEE YOU ANYMORE: How To Break Up With Your Wall Color And Find True Love' is a self-discovery color course I am working on that will have you unpacking your color baggage, embracing it, and blending your 'life inventory' into a palette based on an absolute a sense of true love that will have you falling in love at first sight, over and over again, every time you walk in through your front door.
Ready for the colorful love affair of a lifetime?
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From My Bag To Yours, Gretchen