Through The Colours: Orange Reminds Us Healing Isn’t Linear
Red was life, orange is healing. Makes it sound like I ought to be selling a wellness-retreat from a yoga mat on a beach in Gozo. But the healing I’m talking about is less for the ‘gram and more messy trial-and-error with duct tape and a bad sleep schedule.
Because healing isn’t linear. Whoever coined that neat little phrase should have to traverse through Valletta in six-inch stilettos. Healing, for me at least, has looked more like:
- Hibernating through COVID and convincing myself that isolation was a safety net, when it really was just suffocating.
- Masking ‘til my face hurt, then wondering why I was exhausted by the time I hit my 20s.
- Burning out, crashing, and ghosting part of my identity like it was an awkward date.
And then, slowly… a diagnosis. Autism. A word that felt like both a key and a mirror. A way for me to understand why I needed to heal in the first place. Why my body and brain could never seem to recover in the same way that everyone else around me could.
Orange is an inbetween. Not a pulse of red, nor the serenity of blue. It’s an uncomfortable middle-ground where you find yourself trying to glue scraps back together to get new information, just to cover up an old scar. Honestly? It’s ugly sometimes. Healing means facing the things you ignored for years. Admitting you’ve been running on empty all along. It means laughing at yourself for thinking you could self-medicate with iced coffee and nostalgia.
But orange is also sunsets. It’s warmth. It’s the glow others see, while you feel in your chest; like someone really sees you – like, really sees you. Without having to explain or justify your performance. It’s like a joy breaking through cracks you thought were sealed permanently.
When Pride season beckons, at various times across the world, people will see flags and floats and displays of love that sparkle and shiny in every shade and hue. But orange should be a reminder that behind all the glitter, the facade, the mask, we’re all healing from something. Healing from years of being told not to be ourselves. Healing from silence, from shame, from the little papercuts of past memories and experiences. Healing from a pandemix that stole so much of our time and energy.
Healing doesn’t need to be an erasure of the scars. It can mean living with them. Owning them. Painting them orange, holding them up to the light and saying: you know what? I’m still here.
Baryn is an occasional writer with a penchant for quiet corners and long walks through Malta, hunting Pokémon. Obsessed with all things Pocket Monsters, nostalgia and self-reflection, he drifts between the past and daydreams of the future while trying to catch them and live his best life doing so. Join along in the journey @jacxbsen_.
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