I Used to Know the Colour of Calm

There was a time when I knew how to sit in a room and not feel the need to earn my place in it.

A time when silence wasn’t a punishment, when being alone didn’t feel like being left behind. I’d sit cross-legged on the floor, back curled like a comma, scribbling nothing in particular with a blue crayon, sky on top, ocean beneath, space in between. I didn’t know I was practising serenity then. I thought I was just… drawing.

I didn’t call it meditation. I didn’t name it mindfulness. I just let myself be. Blue taught me that. Not in words, but in tone.

But at some point, the room got crowded.

Not with people, just noise.

Expectations. Timelines. Performances dressed as purpose.

“Make it count.” “Stay visible.” “Don’t disappear.”

So I stopped sitting.

I stood.

I ran.

I performed stillness while buzzing underneath.

One day, I picked up a blue crayon, and it didn’t fit my hand anymore.

It felt… childish. Slow. Useless.

What’s calm when there are things to prove?

Who has time for breath when approval moves faster than healing?

I started wearing red. Loud colours. Colours that scream, “I’m here. I matter.”

I drenched my days in red, urgent, loud, exhausting.

I drowned my thoughts in noise.

But even in a room full of applause, I missed the soft hum of my own company.

The truth?

I want to remember.

Not just what blue looked like.

But what it felt like.

The weightless clarity.

The quiet kind of joy that doesn’t need an audience.

So maybe I start small.

A single moment. A single breath.

A single blue line on an empty page.

Not to impress. Not to finish.

Just to return.

Because maybe serenity isn’t found.

Maybe it’s remembered.

Featured Image by bridgesward from Pixabay