Bikes?

I have an odd obsession with bikes. It started sometime this summer; I can't exactly remember when. But all of the sudden, I wanted the focal point of my bedroom in my new apartment to be a bike wall hanging. With my birthday money, I purchased an old timey bike necklace off of etsy (pictured left) and it has become a staple in my wardrobe. I even purchased a cream bike that sits prominetely on my nightstand.

This semester, I am spending a large portion of my week with preschoolers. I am a grad assistant at a preschool language program, which I absolutely love, work with some preschool aged chidren at a private school for children with learning disabilities, and, my favorite part of all, I shadow the preschool boy with autism that I worked with this summer. He is mainstreamed in a regular 4 year old classroom, so shadowing him means encouraging him to socialize with the regularly developing kids.

One of the kids, Gibson, is particularly cute. He always wears gray clothes, is very animated and acts like a little man. Inspired by the bike obsession, I have been wearing the bike necklace nearly every day. Last week, Gibson came to ask me a question, when a look of perplexion came across his face. "What is that for?" I asked Gibson.
"What is that on your necklace?" He asked, still looking quite confused.
"It's a bike!" I said with a smile, hoping the conversation would end, because I wasn't sure how to explain this to anyone, especially a 4 year old.
"It doesn't look like a bike. It looks like a wheelchair." Gibson replied. I was definitely not expecting this, so I explained that it was an old timey bike, and it looked different than a regular bike that he would ride.
"Are you sure?" he questioned. "It really looks like a wheelchair."
I just smiled this time.


His questioning made my week. When I went back today, I wore the bike necklace. It now puts a smile on my face everytime I put it on. I love kids.

Gray

Gray. It's a strange color; a perfect combination of black and white.

My favorite color is gray. It's odd, I know. It's such a melancholy color. It's dull. It's depressing, It's glum. It's the color of clouds before rain cleanses them. Strange as it is, I love it. Every time I am perusing for bargains at Marshalls, I smile with delight as I see a gray knee-length sweater dress. My friends and family laugh. It's odd.

Life used to fee black and white to me. Things were right and wrong. Plain and simple. There was no middle ground. I knew what was right, what I was supposed to do and what was wrong and that I shouldn't do, and I had no problem finding the discipline to do just that. It came naturally to me. I took that for granted.

Lately, life has felt very gray. What used to be so plainly black and white has somehow been blended together. Emotions float in between. People float in between. And all of the sudden, what was a palate of neatly dabbled splotches of black and white is a charcoal mixture. It's hard to know how to fix it. It's difficult to know what to do next.

Part of me things that the gray is what makes life...well, life. Perfection is wearing. Life would be dull without imperfections. Maybe embracing the gray, embracing the complication, embracing the mess is what makes life.