The Red Lipstick: The Reason I Hated Red My Entire Life

I had to go to the bathroom one day and the half-bath in my parents’ bedroom was available and closer. Someone else was in the other bathroom, so when you gotta go, you gotta go, so to my parents’ bathroom I went.

There I was, sitting on the pot as my knees touched the wall in front of me. I told you it was a small bathroom. I had a few minutes to kill and was looking for something to read. Sometimes I’d read the labels on cleaning products that were by the sink or looked through mom’s blue makeup case that was always on the floor. I chose to view the contents of her makeup case.

As I opened her makeup case, I looked in with excitement. It was like Christmas! There were just a handful of lipsticks, some foundations, and lotions, but it was the lipsticks that intrigued me. I couldn’t wait to open them up to see what color they were. Like opening a crayon box for the first time, I got that color rush when I saw what was inside. Here we go again; something inside me came alive.

Off came the cap of Revlon Red as I twisted the bottom until it was fully exposed. It was the most beautiful red I’ve ever seen! To me, it was the biggest crayon and the most beautiful color in the world!

I took that red lipstick, and while I was sitting on the pot, I entertained myself. Without a thought, I drew pictures galore on the wall in my mom’s bathroom until the lipstick was gone. Where did it go? I twisted and twisted, and it was just gone. What just happened? Before I knew it, I was still on the pot, and on the wall in front of me was a series of small scribbles. Faces, flowers, bees, and I believe there was a stick figure house with a smoky chimney protruding from the roof.

“Oh my god! What did I do?”

I ruined my mom’s lipstick and drew all over her light blue bathroom walls! In fear of getting my whole hand cut off this time, I tried rubbing it off with toilet paper, and all that accomplished was creating one big red blob on the wall. I don’t know if I was upset because I couldn’t clean it or ruined my drawings in the process. I was probably going to get killed for this one. This waxy red art was not coming off the walls, and the worst part, there was no way in hell that I could blame this one on my brother because he couldn’t draw a straight line if his life depended on it. I was so screwed. I knew my mom would know that I was the culprit. I was scared.

The next moments in time were a blur. I don’t even know what happened. Maybe I blacked out. Maybe my mom beat the shit out of me, and I totally don’t remember anything. Maybe nothing happened, I DON’T KNOW!

At this point, my mom thought I was crazy or had some mental disorder as a result of the measles I had when I was ten—flashback to when I had the measles. I remember the doctor telling my mom that he’d be surprised if I didn’t develop some issues with one of my major organs due to the high fever— what a horrible thing for a doctor to say, especially since I could hear him because I was in the room! For my entire life and even up until this day, if I had a body part that hurt, I thought it would be the organ trouble I was to get. Lucky, so far, so good, and yes, I am crossing my fingers and knocking on wood.

The drawing on the walls stopped that day, but the urge to draw never did. Even though my mom threw a conniption every time she discovered one of my masterpieces, I still had to draw. Did I know better at that age not to write on the walls with my mom’s very expensive lipstick? Hell yeah, but the urge was too strong. I couldn’t stop. That urge, ladies and gentlemen, is called passion. Either you have it, or you don’t. This drive is nothing you can learn in school. It’s a God-given gift. This calling was and still is so strong in my life today. I continue to color, draw, paint, design, decorate, and create, and there is no end in sight.

Snip-it from my memoir. Color is my life, and THAT is the COLOR part of #FromColorToTheCosmos.