The Purple Crayon

Oct. 30, 2021

There is no piece of literature on this earth that has impacted more than Harold and The Purple Crayon, the children’s book in which a little boy draws himself a fantasy world from the safety of his bedroom, with his beloved purple crayon. For the past 24-odd years, I have continued, perhaps against odds, to believe I could invent my life the way Harold did, that I could draw nine kinds of pie, that life was not simply just happening to me.

I can see now how this belief has allowed me to wake up, sometimes in the afternoon (often then), and choose to live, rather than to die. Despite the constant cycle of late rent, credit card debt, buyers remorse, work, pouring wine for people that could buy me for the right price, eating as little as possible to save money, but buying a $7 matcha latte nearly every day, I keep going, dragging my purple crayon behind me. I’m desperately trying to forget my past, just as desperately as I try to remember it, to write it all down. I can still draw the nine kinds of pie I like best, I promise myself. It is on days like these that I assure myself it’s true. 

Today is the day before Halloween, and I am wearing head-to-toe purple because the uniform at the “ironic, postmodern” restaurant I work at is simply “monochrome.” I realize now, I am dressed as the purple crayon. I’m at my local bookstore coffee shop, after spending most of the day on the couch, just trying to draw my life into something a little more cheerful in my ninety minutes before work. I saw Harold and the Purple Crayon sitting on the shelf and suddenly my fantasy world, my love of being asleep, my constant daydreaming on long car rides, the imagined scenarios that sometimes feel more vivid than the reality of my life, all make sense. It’s all Harold’s fault. It’s all because of that purple crayon.

As a child, somewhere in my subconscious, I knew life would never be as simple for me as it was for Harold, but I still haven’t stopped trying.