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What Color is Fatigued?

I was flipping through a magazine and saw a little ad for Sonia Kashuk's nail polish, and one of her latest colors is called Fatigued. At first, I thought she was making fun of us. I'm being overly sensitive, but since the entire world has made fun of us for like thirty years, it's kind of hard not to be. Then, I realized, she was referring to Army fatigues. The color of the nail polish is a sort of a pale green, like the kind used in khaki army clothing.

I've never really thought of assigning a color to our Fatigue. The hated F word. Would it be grey? It certainly wouldn't be yellow. Yellow is too happy. Red is too passionate and orange would be too energetic. Green is too healthy. Blue is healing. Hmmmmmm. Grey almost fits. Maybe because the disease is actually murky like the bottom of a swamp. On a good day, you can almost see the sunlight shining through the murky waters. And on a bad day, it's black as pitch. But you're usually stuck somewhere in between. Which makes you in a sort of grey area, doesn't it? Maybe we need grey buttons and grey ribbons and grey tshirts. This is the color of Fatigue.......it's grey.

Comments

Years ago, shopping on Melrose in L.A. I came across clothing with the label "Chronic Fatigue." This irked me to no end. It took me years to figure out, like you did rather more quickly, that the reference was primarily to military "fatigues" with the clever little addition of the "chronic." Still, I couldn't imagine that someone would come up with a clothing label of "Pancreatic Cancer," say, or "Brayne Tumor". How about "A.L.S." (Awesome Little Shoes maybe?), "M.S." (Majorly Sporty?), "Sore-Eye-Asis", Huntington's Korea-Beach swimwear for asians? I'm sure I could do better if I didn't need to go to bed, right now.
 
Hi Carrigon,

You described it very well. Grey is the color that makes sense. I would add a dark grey. Because of the dark side of it. Th pain and misery. Yes, dark grey makes sense. It also connotes in my mind heavy foggy clouds that are ominous.
 
Yes, grey, but how about a pale yellowish-grey? That is the color my husband tells me I look on bad days- or as he says, it's not a color a person should be ;).
 
On a more cheerful note, one of the few ways I can improve my appearance these days (thin, dead-looking hair, circles under my eyes, etc.) is to paint my nails. I'm mostly bedbound, and while lying here I've made this into an art form. So when I associate M.E. with fingernails, it's bright red in winter and silver in summer. Also, my nails are so long and sturdy, people think they're false. That may not be everyone's style, but its mine, and its a wonderful trivial pursuit.
 

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Carrigon
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