An Abundance of Pink

Among the stacks of books I discovered in my Aunt Ola's childhood bedroom, were the "Honey Bunch" novels, a series of sticky sweet tales about a perfect girl child with blue eyes and blonde hair.  I read each one in between "Anne of Green Gables" and "The Waterbabies", amazed at the sheer sugary perfection of the main character, a child who had never known disappointment or falsehood or anything less than complete love.  Surely such a child, an utterly good and angelic little girl, could not - should not - exist, not even in fiction.  Surely such fair and even tempered, sunshiney parents could not - should not - exist, not even in children's books.  Each summer I vowed I would not read them again - the truth was that I hated Honey Bunch with as much preteen passion as I could summon.  She was the pinafore'd and prim little girl that I knew my mother had imagined, dreamed of, counted on - and did not get.  She never got dirty, never misbehaved, never spoke out of turn or refused to eat her vegetables.  She was always on time and polite to her elders,  never excluded anyone from her nightly prayers, chewed with her mouth closed and knew her Bible verse every Sunday.  The idea that someone would willingly invent such a creature and then profit from her innocent adventures made my teeth hurt.


Even now, I dislike overly girly girls and an abundance of pink gets on my nerves.  There's something inherently superficial to me about an excess of ruffles and frills and hair, something falsely delicate and unreal.  I can't shake the thought that underneath all that glitter and pink perfection there's a deep well of..... well, absolutely nothing.  It's a silly notion, I know, born of a silly childhood inadequacy, but it stays with me nevertheless.  Even in this imperfect world, I can't convince myself that pink and brains are compatible.


At the end of my stay at the farm each summer, I went through the books one last time, saying goodbye and promising them I'd be back.  Except for Honey Bunch, they were all dear friends with substance and stories to tell, stories that would be fresh and new the following summer.  The Honey Bunch books were relegated to a sunless and musty corner where I always vaguely hoped they might dry up and turn to dust over the winter.  I suppose I also hoped that my mother's expectations of her only daughter might meet a similar fate.


If you aren't accepted for who and what you are, you either keep trying to please - a vain and useless pursuit if ever there was one - or you change.  If change leads to self acceptance, all the better.  Learn to please yourself, be yourself, and write off the rest.  The expectations of others are really just pink in disguise.