Looking at red

I feel like I'm always apologizing for lack of posts. If it seems it is one thing, it turns into another. Right now, my dad is visiting and brought me my new car! Woot! It's a Honda-CRV which will fit all my dogs! It's interesting, because it is a year older than my Malibu but in pristine condition with less mileage. Plus, the tires are new, and it is all-wheel drive which is very nice.

There are definitely things I have to get used to like my gear shifts on a steering column, the window buttons not located on the window, no automatic lights (I really miss that feature), and locking the driver's side door with a key versus automatically locking all the doors. Obviously, these are just nit picky things that I'll get used to over time.

The biggest one, however, is that it is RED. I've never really been a "red" person. If I were to describe anyone who was a "red" person, it would be my dad. He has all those characteristics you normally think of as red--passion, anger, confidence, lust, love, desire, beauty, intensity. Me, nope, not in those sense of blaringly loud. Honestly, I would not have picked red, and my father said he would not have either, but that it looked so good.

If you look at the symbolism of red, it is so varied with both positive and negative connotations. I won't go through all of them, because there are many from historical, religious, mythical, medical, political, cultural, etc. The one that stands out most to me is that RED draws attention. It's one reason why it is used for stop signs.

I have a funny relationship with being visible. There were certainly times in my life when I wanted to be visible but no one saw me, while there were other times when I just wanted to disappear. It's always been a kind of tug of war. Yes, I wanted acknowledgement but shrunk back when I received it. I'd often play my modesty card, always afraid of accepting an award, a trophy, a medal, a line in the paper as unworthy of it. As I got older, I wouldn't say I was content with being in the background, but maybe it felt safer there.

In looking at it from the point of the eating disorder, being thin made me stand out. People asked how I could do this or that and maintain that type of figure. With bulimia, there was less of a disappearance and more of a blending in which made it more difficult to be recognized, though the majority of my ED was as a bulimic.

I'm not sure how this all ties in really, and it's probably just a conceptual idea that I'm over analyzing. I guess I ask myself whether I can turn into a "red" person. I've always considered myself as "blue." Maybe I can just take the good parts of what red means and leave the rest. Certainly, confidence, fully of energy, strength, power, love can all be positive qualities. Maybe, in time and as bizarre as it sounds this car will play a role in learning to be a little more "red."