It was this amazing, Fall day. The kind of day that holds this anticipation of an impending, new season. I was taking my walk on this crisp, sunny Ohio morning, contemplating life, going thru the mental list of things to do with my house and suddenly I took pause. This clear, big, beautiful, azure sky, with bright sun light leaping across the expanse, could only be described as somewhere between cyan and blue. It was breathtaking and I pondered this amazing sky as I walked around this corner.
And then I was taken back, as if i was in slow motion for a moment. There was this beautiful, bright yellow tree with the sun streaming thru every leaf, making them even brighter yellow and the entire tree exploded with color. He stood their proudly, in the mist of all the trees, who were still very much green. I was so stunned, I stood there, under Yellow tree and just basked in the sun light filtering through his bright yellow leaves. I didn’t want to leave, I just felt joy filling my entire body. I stood there silently, wanting to embrace this moment of joy, to have this memory tucked away, when winter’s bleakness settled in.
I had this thought: Yellow tree didn’t really care about the timing of showing off his colors. He was shining because he felt like it was the time he needed to shine. This is hard as mere humans, because we are all shaped to kind of “go with the crowd”. Most people put teenagers in this category, but even as adults, we fall into the comparison trap. We want to meet someone’s else’s expectations and not always be ourselves . We are afraid if we show our true colors while everyone around us is adamant in saying, “no, remain green”, we will lose friendships, status, and popularity. Sometimes , it’s not about fitting in, it’s about being true to yourself and also, bringing joy to others, even if they see you different than them. I question why this is so hard?
We all want to belong, we all want to be accepted. We all want to shine at the same time everybody else is shining, but it really doesn’t make sense? Beautiful Yellow tree brought me great joy because he chose to not simply blend in with the other trees. Instead he chose to shine in his own way and own timing. And that in turn created joy.
I think sometimes being like Yellow tree when everyone else stays green, is a beautiful and painful lesson. I have had moments where I tried to be strong enough to be like Yellow tree in the last couple years of my life, and it has not always been easy. But staying green to make everyone else happy was also destroying my joy.
It’s not easy to set yourself apart, but maybe joy will be found like you’ve never dreamed by setting those fears aside. And one lesson I have learned from this last year of blogging is true: what Yellow tree did was simplistic but yet at times possibly terrifying to choose to go against the flow of the mundane. But I have learned you can simply bring joy to others and yourself, by letting yourself shine, in your own way, your chosen time, despite other’s expectations.
A woman who chose joy 