When I was a kid I remember riding in the backseat of a car one day and realizing that when I closed my eyes I didn’t see anything. I couldn’t imagine anything, no color, no shapes, no images. I decided that if I was going to have an interesting inner life, I wanted it to be in color. So I closed my eyes and started to learn to imagine.

When I was older, I looked around me and realized that my life wasn’t in color. None of the shiny situations, exciting stories, or fancy people and parties that I had imagined as a kid. So I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to watch as I tore my life apart.

Now I close my eyes and remember the extravagance that I created, the filigree towers of visions I spun from the threads of wayward lives, the endless seeking for another thrill. The memories are as gray now as the heart that inhabited them.

As I open my eyes, there is color all around me.