Why I Still Color
I’m sure you’ve noticed, dear reader, the fad of grown-up coloring books. They feature intricate designs and sometimes overwhelming patterns. No five-year-old would have the patience to carefully color these pages. Even I struggle to color inside of these lines on occasion—but I do enjoy trying.
My senior year of high school, in the midst of my literary analysis for senior English, the longest paper I’d written at the time, I became obsessed with Disney and Barbie coloring books Walmart sold. These coloring books featured challenging pictures for being made for kids. I spent hours working on them. They relieved stress. They gave me a chance to turn my brain off of the lists of deadlines. While I wasn’t actively thinking about my paper or the scholarship applications, I would finish coloring and feel more energized to work on the important projects.
It was embarrassing for the 18-year old version of myself to carry around a Barbie coloring book. So I went to college without my newfound stress reliever. Thankfully there were plenty of other distraction in college to help with stress—though I can’t say that I worked through all of that stress the most gracefully. But who does?
I’ve often said, since then, that baking, sewing, and coloring are therapeutic to me because they’re examples of the creative process that you can see and feel. I love writing, but you can’t touch it until you print it out. You can’t finish the process in a day (most of the time). Being creative in a way where you can see the end is refreshing. I’ll make a cupcake with a perfect swirl of frosting, or a baby blanket with a cute pattern, or I’ll finish a page in a coloring book, and I’ll be able to see the full circle. It’s amazing to me how creating with my hands can trigger ideas for my writing.
My mom found one for me a year ago, just before they really blossomed. I was still in grad school, working on my thesis, when she gave it to me. Now, you walk into any bookstore and you’ll find a dozen different coloring books meant for adults—most of which are labeled with “stress relieving” or “calming.” I love it. I love that something I discovered about myself in high school is true of a lot of adults.
