Embrace the Tired
Sometimes it’s about the juxtaposition.
Sometimes you shine bright, putting out this bright color and effervescence. Others, you’re breaking and cracking and crumbling.
Time has changed my pallor and somehow made it shine. You cannot miss me here in Paris. I catch your eye right away. My orange sheen brings people over, curious about my story. It’s funny because in life, I blended in. People rarely noticed me, probably because I rarely noticed myself.
In a city like Paris, I was never quite enough. Never fashionable enough. Never quite pretty enough. My makeup wasn’t quite perfect enough. My hair was never straight enough. Yet somehow I was too much. My laugh too loud. My body too wide. My hair too unruly. My clothes too frumpy. I was too plain yet too loud. I was too quiet but spoke too freely. I moved through life as a walking conundrum - never enough yet too much.
In death, this statue’s face reflects my exhaustion. When I was buried in the late 1800s, my statue was a plain color. It blended in much like I did. Yet somehow the elements of Paris wanted me to enjoy in death what I never could in life: a chance to be seen.
Through the years, my plain colors shifted to this bright peach and orange. When the sun comes out, I shine. I radiate. I glow. People flock here to read my stone, but it’s faded. I feel like someone when people try to look into my eyes. What they see in my face is the duality of radiance and sleepiness, of sunshine and sadness. My eyes look down searching for something. Some days I look for answers. Others I seek questions.
The bracelet on my wrist is a replica of a plain gold band I bought myself. I wanted a sparkle and when my soul wouldn’t come through for me, I thought putting on some artificial glow could do the trick. Fake it until you make it, they said. Now, the sheen on my stone matches that luster I tried to recreate.
Some days the statue fakes it for me. It fakes the smile I cannot feel or muster. My insides remind me that being sad is part of the human experience. The sadness is etched in my face in the downturned lips, my downtrodden eyes. Yet the orange attracts people, draws me out, pulls them in.
The color teaches me to embrace the rainbow. Embrace the spectrum that is life. And death.
