People always used to tell me that I had the most beautiful deep blue eyes, they used to say I could warp any ones thoughts into a hypnotic state when our eyes made contact.

When I first learned to ride a bike, I used to worry my dad.  I used to let go of both of my handlebars and see how long I could stay on until the front tire started to wobble, and I would jolt back forward to regain balance.  I used to do stunts better than evil knievel.  I used to leave my pedals and put my feet on the cross bar shifting myself from a sit to a squat.  I used to be a circus act.  I used to be so proud that I grew out of my training wheels.  I used to ride my bike looking straight up into the infinitely big sky until one day I wondered.

“Pappa, why is the sky blue?” He always looked down at me with a twinkle in his eye and a blanket wrapping his heart because he knew that my wondering was as adorable as a newly born kitten begging for some milk. He could’ve given me the actual scientific reasoning as to why the sky is blue, but he enjoyed the stories I used to tell about how aliens came from Mars in space ships and sprayed food coloring on Earth or that way above the clouds there was another ocean with fish swimming up there like birds.

People would always look me in the eyes and tell me that they were the color of the ocean.  And coming from a family of swedes, all my brothers did.  I would normally just say “thank you” but in my mind correct them with the thought of my eyes being the color of a hippy’s faded jean jacket or the color of smurf skin or those martians food coloring.  People used to squat down to be eye level with me and say “your blue eyes are big and beautiful.”

They used to say that blue is hope and wonder, innocence and immaturity. Blue is the reckless character from Fosters Home of Imaginary Friends and the song that you’d probably aimlessly dance to by Eiffel 65.  But I always disagreed.  Blue is the color of blood when it was starved of oxygen like being trapped under an avalanche of snow.  Blue is the color of cop lights flashing behind you like right after that hotbox. Blue is the color I was labeled at birth.

I didn’t want to be blue, i’d rather be green. The color of a strong evergreen stretching towards the sky like a cat getting up from a long nap. I wanted to be the color of a frog leaping gleefully into an algae filled swamp like a teacher leaping out the school doors when summer begins.  Green is fierce and dangerous, adventurous and full of mystery. I want to be green.

Now I sit here on my deck, school’s starting soon and I ask my dad, “why is the grass green?” But before he answered there was a pause and we both looked at one another, smiled and then got warped into our own bubbles of thought.

I am not green, I am not blue. Who is to label anyone on what color they are? And now sitting here I wonder if I grew out of one color and into another, or matured enough to realize colors don’t need to exist.