Spaces, Places, and the Colors Between

An exploration of how different spaces in our lives carry their own colors, and what happens when you finally give yourself permission to inhabit all of them.

We inhabit countless spaces throughout our lives, each one leaving its imprint on our identity. Some are as tangible as a childhood bedroom, others as ephemeral as a moment of clarity during a morning commute, or a fleeting moment of human connection in a bookstore.

Before the explosion of "content creators" or "influencers," I felt proud to have been noticed by companies like Coach, Nike, and Disney. The truth, though, is that I was just finding my feet in New York. I was working in the social media industry as a one-woman show: everything from strategy to photoshop to community management flowed through my fingertips. By the time I had a moment to myself, I was creatively bankrupt. Making space for my own work felt impossible.

After that came another high-stress role on a team that demanded everything—time, energy, creativity—leaving nothing for me. My own "thing" collected dust on the back burner.

Now here we are. In a new era of "me."

But what does "space" actually mean when you're starting over? Is it physical, digital, emotional—or something more profound? What I've discovered is that each space in our lives carries its own color.

Come hop through the celestial planes of my mind: the pinks of romantic and platonic love, the periwinkle of quiet reflection, the charcoal of uncertainty that eventually reveals gold moments of clarity.

In the galaxy of my experiences, pink burns brightest—a star that has guided me through every season of love and connection. I'm writing this surrounded by evidence of its pull: my iconic pink desk setup where I poured energy and resources into perfecting, the pink laundry basket filled with clean laundry awaiting folding, pink peonies drooping gracefully in a moon shaped vase, and my pink Kindle waiting patiently for tonight's reading ritual. Pink follows me everywhere, and now I understand why.

For a while in my late teens and early 20s, I shied away from the color pink. I thought it was too feminine, too bright, too “girly.” I wanted to be cool, dark, mysterious—to exude the confidence I so desperately wanted to own internally. Especially in my 20s, living paycheck to paycheck and scraping by on ramen noodles, too embarrassed to tell anyone that despite working a 40 hour work week while going to college full time, I wasn’t making enough. Black was my armor—my tough exterior to hide from the rest of the world. Pink was just too… soft. Too squishy.

Slowly, I noticed pink popping up in my space. At first, it was small: a phone case or maybe a stationery item.

After I met my (now) husband, I learned what it meant to feel safe in not just my femininity, but the multitudes and range of what femininity can look like. And over the last decade or so, the close circle of people I’m lucky enough to call my friends have also provided comfort and safety to be myself.

More recently in the last 3 years, pink has also become a signature for my relationship with my daughter: my hospital go-bag was giant and hot pink. I remember packing and unpacking so many different things, unsure of what we would actually need. But one thing I won’t forget packing (because I thought I might take a shower if it was a longer stay): the fluffiest and softest giant pink bath towel.

Thinking back on it now, how silly it was that we lived a less-than-ten-minute-walk from the hospital and I could have sent my husband back at any time for a towel if I needed one. But instead, I decided to take up significant space in my go-bag because it felt like something tangible that I understood about motherhood when facing the unknown: that no matter what, I would probably need to take a shower. That towel was one of my first deliberate acts of pink-powered motherhood. When it came time to send lunch to daycare, we chose that same hot pink for her lunchbox because it felt like sending a piece of that original comfort with her each day.

And so pink is really about the feeling of safety and comfort that stems from romantic and platonic love. This space has given me the confidence to pursue passions and tackle some of life's most difficult obstacles. Pink taught me that I was worthy of love of all forms and capable of creating it. But there was another color calling to me from quieter corners—one that promised different kinds of nourishment for a different kind of hunger.

If pink burns brightest in my galaxy, then blue is the steady backdrop—a vast expanse glittering in shades of midnight sky, moonlight on water, and periwinkle, where that hunger I mentioned feeds and flourishes. These are the contemplative territories where ideas gestate, the literary landscapes where other minds become my companions and the intellectual sanctuaries that have sheltered me through every major transition.

There's not much I remember about elementary school, but I remember my favorite color was blue. And, of course, the Scholastic book fair. For as long as I can remember, I've retreated into spaces of intellect—from "gifted and talented" programs where I selected the Bermuda Triangle as my project, to literal bookstores where I would consistently pick books that were very likely not appropriate for my reading level. But these spaces felt safe, places where it seemed logic and reasoning could solve any problem. After all, of course the Bermuda Triangle was simply two funnel-shaped black holes meeting in the middle. (Give me a break, I was in third grade, ok?)

And as I entered my teens, being able to recite world history references is surely a one-way speed rail ticket to being a cool popular kid. /s

The artificial pressure to hide such a fundamental part of myself felt so wrong. But when you grow up in a place where strip clubs and fake IDs are the norm, you also have a desperate desire to fit in. And as I said in “Gentle Moons & Story Stars,” desperation is a hell of a thing. And rather than let this space die (like I did for a while with pink), I squeezed an entire universe into the margins of my books—tiny annotations of who I really was, visible only to me.

But again, as I entered my late 20s and finally felt the safety and comfort of my pink spaces, those tiny annotations began to sprawl across entire pages, demanding the room they'd always deserved. I satiated the thirst and hunger for these calm but stimulating spaces through hours long podcasts that delved into my favorite French luxury brand, doorstop-books that answered questions about the history of people whose eyes kissed in the corners and the origins of societal cornerstones, and conversations that meandered from childhood dreams to existential questions, the kind that leave you feeling understood in your bones.

Blue spaces taught me to trust my intellect and embrace my curiosity without apology. But there's another color in my galaxy—one that represents the times when thinking your way through isn't an option, when the only way forward is through the darkness itself.

In my galaxy, charcoal doesn't burn bright like pink or stretch wide like blue. It's the color that pools in the quiet corners where shadows gather. It's the color of "in between"—not quite light, not quite shadow. This color undulates through space and envelops the brightness, where depression shifts familiar landscapes and anxiety builds walls I can't see but constantly run into, where even my pink love and blue curiosity suddenly feel impossibly distant in the gray haze.

I’m reluctant to use the word “suffer” because, on a day-to-day basis, I don’t suffer. But from as early as probably my early teens, I remember the charcoal of anxiety and depression walking alongside me, casting shadows over the starlight. I remember thinking constantly about what things might be like if I wasn’t around anymore when teenage heartbreak felt like my world was collapsing. Then my parents announced their divorce and I was desperate to press the button to eject and launch myself away from this space.

I found refuge in Japan. I studied abroad for 3 months in a Japanese program and that was the most free and happy I had ever felt. The charcoal shadows receded back into their corners to make way for the pink of cherry blossom season.

But charcoal shadows have a way of following you, even across oceans. When I returned stateside, I decided to move across the country for college. And during my final semester of senior year, what should have felt like a crowning achievement—one of my capstone projects—became the darkest point yet when a professor's poor communication turned months of work into what felt like academic catastrophe. For the first time in a very long time, the voice inside debating whether we’d be better off if we weren’t around became more than whispers, demanding attention and a conversation. I’m grateful for friends who alert your long distance boyfriend to help recalibrate in moments of turbulence.

The thing about high-functioning anxiety and depression is that you can excel at life while simultaneously feeling like you're floating in an endless abyss, waiting for the wave to just take you. To the outside world, I was the first in my family to graduate college, successful in a city that ate you alive, and in the process of planning a fairytale wedding, but internally, the successes felt hollow and some days required enormous energy just to appear normal. In Asian cultures, there’s the concept of “saving face”, and that’s what I felt like I had to do. So every day, especially on days when the voices crescendoed, I put on my carefully crafted pixie dusted mask to face the world.

In 2017, I decided to hell with stigmas and began therapy. I am forever grateful for the life-changing journey that my therapist took me on. And in 2024, I worked with my PCP to determine a combination of medication that would provide me stability during volatile times.

These days, charcoal no longer has free rein over my mind’s galactic spaces but I’ve learned to live and accept that without these shadows, there is no starlight. Through a combination of anti-anxiety medication and the self-management techniques therapy taught me—like letting the organizational impulses free on days when things feel out of control, taking the time to sit in quiet and rest when my battery is low, or teaching my partner and friends to recognize the signs of when I need help—I’ve learned to coexist with these shadows rather than be consumed by them.

When I think of gold, I think of the moment a star is born—that brilliant flash when light pierces darkness. In my galaxy, gold is the starlight that pierces through charcoal shadows. These are the flashes of clarity that have shaped every major decision of my life: the intuitive leaps, the heart revelations, the professional pivots, the creative breakthroughs, and the health reckonings that force you to redesign your entire relationship with time and energy.

When I decided to go abroad to Japan for a summer, there was nothing but obstacles. I was eighteen. I had no real money—Japan is expensive. And I’d get no actual college credits or any sort of accreditation for these courses. I had essentially signed myself up for a language institute program, where my classmates were preparing for formal Japanese proficiency exams while I was there purely for the cultural immersion. None of this made any sense: I graduated high school a year early to get a head start on college and my family wasn’t wealthy. But I knew, even then, it was something I needed to do. I wanted to get away from the fabricated glitz and glam of the city I grew up in for the lush culture, rich history, and really, the expansion of my gold space that only a solo adventure could achieve. Now, a decade and a half later, I don’t regret it. It was a journey of self-discovery that was the reason new stars were born in my galaxy.

When everything shut down in 2020, it felt like a reset for everyone I know. We became more introspective, more existential. For us, that meant thinking about whether we wanted to start a family. My husband and I had a long engagement and we had been married for a couple years. Both of us being only children and not really “kids people,” we didn’t want to upset the delicate balance of our home that we’ve worked so hard to create. We’d also communicated to our parents that it was highly unlikely we were having a kid. And during the summer of 2020, one of our parents had an accident that made us reconsider whether we were really sure in our decision. Where we landed was: we’ll try for a year and if not, we’ll get another dog. I made the decision (in partnership with my OBGYN) to go off of birth control and let my body reset. We had a miscarriage later that year and I’m forever grateful to my body for recognizing that it wasn’t viable and it wasn’t the right time. And in early 2021, after just one month of actually trying, we found out we were expecting. Later that year, the tiniest little moon joined the orbit.

And with new growth comes more clarity. Being on maternity leave provided me with a lot of time to think about what I wanted to do with my career. Did I want to stay in marketing? What parts of my role did I enjoy? Is there something else out there? Through this journey, I discovered that the elements of my role that brought me the most joy were:

1. Translating business and strategic ideas to technical needs

2. Working with and learning from technical teams

3. Satiating the hunger for knowledge

I was fortunate to land on a team and in a role that met all these needs. It took over half a year to ramp up and feel comfortable enough to not feel as though I was trying to run on legs that could barely stand. And while we know how this story ends, I am truly forever grateful for the things I learned, the connections I made, and the knowledge I gained through this career change experience. Because sometimes, even when the road ahead isn't visible, all you need to do is rely on your golden intuition to light a path through the darkness—trusting that clarity will come when you need it most.

Then there are times when life provides you with clarity, whether or not you asked for it. In fall 2023, I decided to have a non-hormonal IUD inserted. I knew the challenges that came with the copper IUD, especially it being the option that may take longer for the body to adjust to. So when my cycle was incredibly irregular, I didn’t think too much of it. Until it had been 6 months and I had gone not more than one day without bleeding. And after seeing a doctor and enough blood tests to rival my pregnancy blood draws, we came to the conclusion that I have Hashimoto’s. Not severe enough to require medication, but enough to impact my day-to-day life, including fatigue and irregular bleeding. This meant a couple things for me: managing my stress, eating better, and thinking about (more existentially) how do I improve my quality of life.

This diagnosis became a different kind of golden moment—not the joyful flash of deciding to have a baby or change careers, but the stark illumination that comes when your body demands you listen after you’ve been pushing it to the limit for too long. It was perhaps the most practical clarity I'd ever received: stop living as if I had endless reserves and start making choices that honored both my limitations and my dreams. When you're forced to redesign your relationship with time and energy, everything else starts to shift into focus—and that perspective would prove crucial for the biggest creative leap I was about to take.

And so, armed with decades of golden moments and the stark clarity of both health limitations and professional upheaval, I found myself in an unexpected position: when you're suddenly forced to rebuild anyway, why not build something that actually fits? The layoff that had felt like an ending became the perfect opportunity for the most authentic creative choice I'd ever made—not from desperation, but from the realization that I finally had both the wisdom and the opportunity to create something entirely mine.

And finally, there’s white. But not in the sense of white being the absence of color or it being a blinding light that blankets everything else. This white is the connection and webbing within my universe—a flexible and finite grid that grows and expands with every center of a new star glowing hot pink with love, every new planet steady and calm in its orbit, and every burst of golden starlight illuminating new paths. White is the space between what was and what's becoming, where I get to consciously choose how to spend my days and energy for perhaps the first time in my adult life.

Throughout my childhood, I struggled to really fit myself in any box: I had good grades but I liked being on the dance team and dancing in competitive hip hop outside of school. I identified more with being Chinese than American but also enjoyed the freedom and independence Western upbringings allowed. I liked Hello Kitty and pink things but also listened to mostly music that was inappropriate for my age. I liked fast cars, house parties, and dressing probably too provocatively for my age but also equally loved ordering a pizza at 11am and spending the entire day virtually in WoW.

Year after year, my pictures looked vastly different from the previous. I had my “Harajuku” phase, my Hot Topic phase, my Ecko Unlimited phase, and my preppy phase. You could say that every teenager goes through this but, to quote the emo meme, “It wasn’t a phase.” I felt each of these identities deeply in my soul.

The years right before I turned 20 to probably my early 20s were less about self discovery, because I actually think I knew who I was, but more about hiding a lot of it. I was dating someone at the time that made me feel pretty insignificant—like I was never enough. Not cool enough, not old enough, not smart enough. And so I concealed this self doubt behind black clothes and heavy makeup.

After (finally) entering a stable and healthy relationship, resulting in a Disney fairytale wedding, one Ewok dog, and one mini-me, I’ve given myself permission to be. Not selectively choosing when or where to reinvent, but being conscious that all these prior “reinventions” were merely me discovering new pieces of myself. But also giving myself the space and ability to reiterate and reinvent: career changes, creative and professional leaps of faith, and this crazy thing called motherhood.

Over the past couple months, this permission to exist in this white space of opportunity while simultaneously reaching back, sideways, and between the different spaces of my life has allowed me to truly connect and feel the freedom of existing comfortably and authentically.

What this looks like day-to-day in terms of what I’m doing here (and over on that other platform where life gets compressed into little rectangles) is allowing myself the space to create in a way that nurtures and feeds all these different facets of my galaxy. In a world where everyone is competing for attention, I've learned that measuring my success against others or trying to replicate what everyone else is doing would be doing myself—and this journey—a disservice.

The question I asked at the beginning—what does 'space' actually mean when you're starting over?—has its answer here in my pink desk setup, surrounded by all the colors that have shaped my journey. What I've learned is that the spaces we inhabit don't just contain us; they become us, and space isn't something you find or claim, but something you create by giving yourself permission to be exactly who you are.

And maybe that's the real magic: not finding the perfect space to fit into, but creating one that holds all of who you are, in all your contradictory, multifaceted glory.

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