From all the stories I’ve told you about my weird childhood
self, you’ll remember that I was inclined to obsess. This started awfully early
in life: I remember being about three years old and insisting that my new
sandbox be painted red.
The color red was just one of many things with which I was
obsessed at a very young age. I had a favorite from each of the major childhood
learning categories: colors, numbers, shapes, and letters.
I call it my Childhood Quadfecta.
COLOR
red
Besides a few ill-fated dalliances into lime green and hot
pink, red has been my favorite color for my entire life. I suspect it may have
started because my dad drives red tractors, and red (Case IH) versus green
(John Deere) is as divisive among farm families as Coke versus Pepsi or red
state versus blue state or what have you. I was (and still am) staunchly Team
Red when it comes to farm equipment, and therefore everything I owned had to be
red. I had a red wagon and a red tricycle and the aforementioned red sandbox. I
wanted my first pair of glasses to have red frames, but I settled for a pair
with red flecks. I pouted when my parents traded in their bright red car for a
minivan. Years later, I still love all things red. One of my wedding colors was
red: red inked invitations, red Chinese lanterns, red fingernails, red shoes
(for James AND me!), red flowers, red ties, etcetera. James has a red car, and
I (with my boring silver car) am envious. We have a red couch, and I
desperately want a red front door. Some things never change, and my love for
the color red looks to be one of them.
NUMBER
7
Whereas I can trace my affection for the color red back to
my dad’s red tractors, I can’t do the same for the rest of my favorites. Why I
loved the number seven, I have no idea. Perhaps it was because I was born in
1987? Who knows. But seven was my favorite. Unlike favorite colors, one tends
to grown out of having favorite numbers, shapes, and letters… but I still have
an appreciation for the number seven. It’s supposed to be lucky, after all.
James and I started dating on July 27, 2007… and we got married on July 27,
2013. July is the seventh month after all, so maybe seven and I have a good
thing going here.
SHAPE
heart
Because of my fondness for salamanders and running through
the woods and playing in abandoned buildings, I wouldn’t call my childhood self
a girly-girl (a term that I kind of hate, but there really is no alternative
descriptor). However, I did love some girly things. I loved dresses and Barbies
and fancy shoes, and all things heart-shaped. On nearly every drawing I made
when I was young, you can find some kind of heart. I had this glitter glue and
fabric applique sweatshirt/sweatpants set (oh yeah, you read that right) that
Mom made me, and it was bedecked in huge purple, pink, and red hearts. I wore
that outfit to death. There was even a time when I carried around a shard of
wrapping paper because it had some multi-colored paint splatter hearts on it
that I loved. I was a weird kid.
LETTER
S
You would think that, understandably, most kids’ favorite
letter would be the first letter of their first name. Makes sense, right? Of
course, that wasn’t me. My favorite letter – again, for reasons unknown – was
the letter S. My middle name was Shelaine, but having never been terribly fond
of my middle name, I’m not going to assume that I loved the letter S because of
it. It’s just one of those fluky things. My parents love to tell me about this
wooden alphabet puzzle that I had as a kid. Each letter was a little wooden
cutout, and you had to put the letters back into their respective places. Sure,
I did that, but I also carried the wooden S puzzle piece around like a good
luck charm. It was light blue and fit in my tiny hand, and miraculously, I
never lost it. It was, however, way dirtier than the rest of the puzzle pieces.
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