My favorite color has changed multiple times over my 53 years of life. I hated the color pink when I was a kid so my parents decorated my room in yellow everything - yellow flowery wallpaper, yellow bedding, yellow curtains… you get the idea. In junior high (they call it middle school now) my favorite color was purple so my parents let me decorate my room all in purple and I had a number of purple clothing items. My favorite color the last many years has been magenta. But pretty consistently throughout my life, orange has been one of my least favorite colors.
So, having been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, I was a bit annoyed at first that the color used for raising MS awareness was ORANGE! Magenta is a much more beautiful color and it even starts with the same letter of the alphabet. But nobody asked me. 😁Orange? Really?
But it has grown on me and I’m starting to kinda like it actually. It is, after all, one of the colors God created and it IS included in the rainbow of promise God puts in the sky from time to time. So, I have overcome my objections to orange as a color representing Multiple Sclerosis fighters and raising awareness for funding research to find a cure.
But why is MARCH, of all months MS Awareness month? No offense to my Mom or others born in the month of March but I have always really dreaded that month. In school it felt like the longest month of the year because it has 31 days and no days time off for holidays - because there are no Federally recognized holidays in the month of March. It is a LONG month, appropriately named - it’s a long MARCH to the end of it! I guess they were running out of months to choose for MS awareness so they settled on March. Or maybe it was selected specifically because it’s a long, difficult month and that helps drive home the fact that MS is a long, difficult fight. Regardless of the reason, I guess I have no choice but to accept that March is the month to make people aware of MS.
But why do we have to pick one month out of the year for the purpose of talking about MS? People with MS live with it 12 months out of every year and, believe me, I am VERY aware of MS regardless of what month it is.
This brings me to my next question: Why, when Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month is March, is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Day MAY 30? It seems like it should be a day in March to me but what does logic have to do with anything these days? Maybe the random way in which awareness dates and months are chosen are an homage to the random nature of MS and its’ symptoms.
I obviously didn’t have a say in choosing a color or an awareness month or day but there is one choice I DO have and that is how I am going to live my life. I get to choose my attitudes and how I respond to the hand I have been dealt.
And I choose joy! I choose to allow GOD to handle my struggles, to fight my battles and to carry me through my weakness.
Poor March. It seems like neither winter, nor spring. But, like you, I have God-given joy ones born in March to brighten the month.
ReplyDeleteMy mom liked many colors, but, orange was the color she chose for decorating. That's good--I mean someone has to use all those orange crayons in the box.
I don't pay attention to observation months, but you had some good ideas of possibilities of why March was chosen. As for the orange, it is, while not my favorite, a bright color. God uses it to put light in His sky; and the 3 people with MS whom I've known best over my lifetime have been bright lights, joyful, and joy givers.
You’re right! Orange is one of the most beautiful colors in a sunset! Orange is more of an October or Autumn color in my mind though - pumpkins, changing leaves, etc. Seems to me if Orange is the MS awareness color, the month should be October!😉
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