COLUMN: A blue crayon won the week, but it won’t ruin the year

In the end it was the crayon that got her.

The blue crayon, to be more specific.

I have to say that I was surprised.

Like a prize fighter, my friend has seemed to take each swipe life has been throwing at her.

Two close members of her family are having mental health challenges including one who has always been her rock.

She has kept on keeping on.

Her kids’ school changes their COVID protocol about six times a day.

In school. Virtual. In school with masks until someone else in the class tests positive.

Then you have to drop everything and come pick your kid up.

When she felt her reserves running low, Friend turned to her happy place.

Her bed.

The place she could slip into the sheets, pull them up over her head for a moment and exhale.

These sheets are her one personal indulgence. She’s not a materialistic person generally. But nice sheets are her thing.

Thread count, Egyptian cotton, all the terms nice sheets people like to focus on.

Friend decided with everything she had going on she deserved a Christmas present. So, she bought these expensive sheets for herself. Gray.

She washed them to make them extra soft.

This wouldn’t be news.

Except for the blue crayon.

Which somehow also made its way into the washing machine and the dryer.

With the sheets.

You see where this is going, yes?

Everywhere.

As in melted blue crayon all over her clothes dryer and embedding a one-of-a-kind design into her beloved sheets.

“Did the sheets at least have a printed design?” I asked hoping that maybe, just maybe the blue crayon could meld in with what was already there.

“Gray. Just a beautiful shade of solid gray,” she sighed looking off into space thinking of the perfect love that once was.

We had run into each other on the street as she was heading home to Google any way to get blue crayon out of expensive gray sheets.

This was sadder than I’ve seen her weeks.

Which makes me sad.

And empathetic.

I’m thinking about Friend, and perhaps, you, too, Dear Reader.

You, who skipped the re-set the new year promised and ran smack into your own proverbial blue crayon.

I don’t have a magic answer.

On how to remove blue crayon.

Or an easy way to get back up from this latest swipe.

But I understand.

To the rest of the world, it looks like one little piece of colored wax.

To you, it was the finishing punch.

Only it’s not.

Like I’ve done for Friend, I will hold you in my understanding embrace.

For now, we will feel the feel.

And,

And there’s going to be a time,

When we look for new sheets, hacks to clean a clothes dryer, and a new box of crayons.

The blue crayon won the week.

But it doesn’t get to win the year.

Daryn Kagan is the author of the book “Hope Possible: A Network News Anchor’s Thoughts On Losing Her Job, Finding Love, A New Career, And My Dog, Always My Dog.” Email her at Daryn@darynkagan.com.

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