As a child, the concept of colors felt pretty simple – green was the grass, blue was the sky. My world was painted in primary colors – bold, simple and uncomplicated. Red was the rage when I didn’t get what I wanted, blue the calm of bedtime stories and yellow the warmth of my mom’s hug. I saw life through a pair of rose tinted glasses blissfully unaware of the troubles that lay ahead but as I grew, the colors around me began to blur and blend, creating shades I couldn’t name or understand. 

With adolescence came what was once a bright shade of purple that turned into a storm of reds and blues that tangled together in a confusing mix of passion and heartache. Friendships deepened and sometimes frayed like old fabric, leaving me with threads of memories woven together. It was around this time where I learned about the complexities of human emotions. I watched my friends fight their own battles, let it be a heart being crushed or the disappointment of failure. The once familiar greens of innocence faded into murky hues as grass which used to be playground for laughter and carefree days felt like a tangled mass of weeds with strange challenges hidden in it to which I was introduced to without a warning. Each day came with new pressures—whether it be the constant need for academic validation, the fear of not fitting in or the weight of unspoken insecurities. 

The bright blue sky morphed into a depressing gray, mirroring the anxiety that often clouded my thoughts or the bars of the cage I was trapped in, unable to voice my thoughts and feelings. Even within my own family, things took a shift as conversations with my parents strained. They’d ask about my day and I would reply with a vague “fine” unwilling to explain the storm that was arising in my head. It was hard to put into words how isolated I felt, how the small problems piled after another until they became too much to carry. Even my mother’s hugs felt distant as the bright yellow dimmed, like they couldn’t reach the core of my worries. I couldn’t tell her about the anxiety that kept me up at night or the pressure I felt to be perfect in this world which expected too much. So I kept it all to myself, thinking if I didn’t say them out loud, it wouldn’t be real. 

Though amidst this chaos, splashes of orange would always peak through in the form of laughter my friends and I would share or in moments of achievement and pride like acing a test. Late night conversations where my friend and I would get real, talking about our fears, futures or the worries that kept us up at night. In those moments, the deep blues of connection would break through the grays and remind me that I wasn’t alone in this. After all, we’re all just kids, pretending to have it all together even though we have no clue.

While all of this went on, white always lingered around in the background—waiting, calm, still and empty. It felt like an empty canvas calling for its artist to paint on it. White was something I didn’t think much about as a kid. It seemed too blank, too simple to be compared to the bold colors which dominated my childhood. White was the color of milk which I was forced to drink every night before bed, the pages of my school notebooks in which I had to solve those daunting mathematics sums on and the board my teacher would write on. It was the absence of color. But as I grew older, white started to take on a new meaning. It became more than just a background; it was the space between moments and silence between my thoughts. There were moments, in the quiet of my room where white became peace—a chance to pause and reset. It became the blank page of a journal where I could pour my heart out without any judgment or the soft glow of my bedroom ceiling under which I could just lie down and picture the endless possibilities of my future. It was everything I hadn’t figured out yet but also a quiet reminder that it was okay to have blank spaces, to not know every answer. After all, it was just a part of the canvas, waiting for me to decide what came next. I came to understand that life is not just a single shade of colour but a blend of many, uniquely my own. As I look at the canvas of my life, I see a palette where each colour coexists, each shade carrying its own story. The reds of passion, the blues of connection, and the greens of innocence lost don’t cancel each other out but blend in a beautiful, messy harmony. The beauty lies in their balance, each colour enriching the whole. I embrace my palette as it is, knowing every shade holds a part of my story, and I look forward to adding new colours as life continues.

And so, I embrace the canvas with all its hues, ready to paint the next chapter. 

By Tanzeel Shahid                                                                                               Writer (Team 2024-2025)