Roses Are Red(?)

I still have my blanket my parents gave me when I was a toddler and I keep it in my closet. I didn’t have a great name for it. I used to call it “Blue Blanky”. Now, this might come across as a respectable name for a blanket; you probably think it was blue. 

It wasn’t blue. 

I’m just freaking colorblind. My stupid colorblind toddler self named a white blanket “Blue Blanky”. 

 

Colorblindness is a funny disability because it really only has consequences for you when you’re a little kid. Being able to perceive colors is really only important as an adult for being able to read a streetlight. If you can tell that the light is green vs. red, being colorblind as an adult literally doesn’t matter. Maybe sometimes you put on a clashing outfit, but otherwise no one cares.

 

When you’re a little kid, knowing your colors is extremely important, up there with being able to count to 5. If you don’t know your colors, it sort of puts you on the outside of the kindergarten community. When I would draw people, I would color their faces light green because, to me, it looked like a skin color. Other kids would be like, “What the hell is wrong with you?”.

Not knowing your colors as a child is like being an adult in 2021 and not knowing your astrological sign. It’s embarrassing. And when people find out you don’t know your rising moon and your setting sun, they will teach you. Whether you want it or not, they will give you an unsolicited education. 

Rudolph