Pink
If a personal essay is about our perception of the world, then this delight essayette sees the world through rose-colored glasses. What appears rosy enough to write about in the monotonous daily routine of Singapore American School? This assignment comes with a visual prescription to search for joy. As a self-diagnosed far-sighted person, I’ve noticed that this new pair of rose-tinted lenses has made some things delightfully distinct. In other words, what in my life is particularly pink?
My nails are pink. Ten fingers, each meticulously coated in two coats of shade #12 and a clear top coat, all before cured under the Gel-X UV Light. I rarely take the ‘me’ time that my Personal Academic Counselor encourages me to. Contrastingly, the two hours I spent strapped into a hot pink, plastic seat at the nail salon amounts to no productive output other than the simple delight of having nails my favorite color. Although I don’t think my restless quality will change anytime soon, I still enjoyed basking in the sheer delight of doing nothing after a long hard week of having to do something on a Friday afternoon.
The rim of every glass I’ve sipped on is tinted pink. Unfortunately, Rare Beauty Makeup hasn’t come up with a transfer-proof formula for my favorite lip gloss yet. Lip gloss, delightfully, is the final touch to most outfits. It’s a microcosm of the feeling that one little piece completes a much bigger picture. Lip gloss is to getting ready as my youngest sister is to my family, as a brand-new close friend is to my life. I experience delight from having something within reach in my purse, accessible and constant. It’s a delightful honor to have something so important that nothing else would ever feel complete without it.
Outside my purse, pink demands attention when it tints the vast Singaporean sunset. I’ve grown to cherish some aspects of Singapore’s Puritan personality. For one, I cherish its safety. I also cherish the childhood it gave me. As a senior, I stand on the precipice of no longer witnessing these sunsets every day. Half a globe away from my next steps, the Singaporean sky flushes its own unique rhythm of yellows, oranges, and pinks. In a year, I’ll stand under the same sky but under a completely different sunset. In some bittersweet twist of fate, my new sky will color itself the same pinks, oranges, and yellows — only in an entirely different mosaic. Perhaps, my next city’s sky will even color itself differently depending on the season (can you imagine?). Can something bittersweet still be delightful? I’m delighted by the sun and all its wanderings.
I find delight in an implicit collection of pink artifacts . Pink, in its overt representation of a girl's adolescence, fades with age. I grew up surrounded by tattered dolls, swirled in pink bliss, swallowed by pink lenghas. I’ve never grown out of my love for pink, but I grew out of the girlhood instinct to run towards it. I’m no longer supposed to find solace in my pinky youth. In preparation, I carry my portable collection of pink on my fingers, on my lips, and in the sky. Even when I’m plucked from my home, unable to carry the whole Singaporean sunset in my suitcase, I’ll have in my pocket a pair of rose-colored glasses.