A few days ago, Riley, the rambunctious ten-year-old girl who lives next door, while playing at our house, came to stand at the open door of my bedroom. Her eyes wide, she asked me, as I sat at my makeup vanity readying myself for work, if the room was mine. When I told her yes, that it was, and I had moved in from the smaller room down the hall only weeks earlier, she intensely stomped inside, dramatically raising her voice calling out to all nearby that she absolutely loved it.

Now the fact that a ten-year-old girl loves my bedroom may say a lot about me as a 53-year-old woman. I’m rarely accused of being mature. And besides, I’ve certainly never been the type to decorate my space according to the standards of what may be considered norm. My first real expression of me (rather than who I previously emulated my “adult” style after) came with the purchase of my first home. I filled the bookshelves in the olive-colored living room with curious trinkets and bobbles that would easily fail today’s cantaloupe test. Fairy lights were strewn from one side of the room to the other, strings affixed into crevices to keep them out of sight. Unique books with obvious talking points were positioned to stand out among the others, and framed photos of happy people sat throughout. My living room looked like an eclectic coffee shop, as my brother once said, telling me he easily saw me curled up with a book and a cuppa near a roaring fire.

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But, it wasn’t long before I wanted to express my bright side further, bored of the old green walls that haunted so many coffee shops in the 1990s. So, I conspired. And soon cookie monster blue sponged with a darker shade of navy covered three walls, bordered by tomato red running up the stairs and school bus yellow leading down the hallways to the bedroom. And while I felt a cursory excitement when returning home with each opening of my front door, like I was stepping from a shabby world of black and white into the land of Oz, my ex absolutely hated it.

And so I let it go, this need I had for vividly intense hues around me. I settled for the standard white walls in the next three homes we lived in, filling the bland spaces up with interesting colorful art and knick-knacks. And my need for brilliance manifested in other ways, expressed through my unique clothing, bold makeup and, as anyone who knows me knows, multitude of hairstyles and colors.

My single life has seen me as colorful and crazy as ever, with thrifted items and found pieces cached at home over the last dozen years. But most things I amassed have been as transient as I, donated or otherwise handed off after being in my possession for only a short time. I have, after all, created a life of stuff only to rid myself of most of it – which I have indeed done four times over in the time span of my singledom accumulation. And here I am, once again in my collection stage, moved into a larger room to fill it with more silly things that I will likely offload in a few years. And very much scratching the color itch, that young Riley so fell in love with.

I don’t know that I will ever “grow up”, at least in the decorative sense. I don’t expect to have expensive art on my walls or fancy furniture to bequeath to my kiddos. And I am unrepentant in this, which probably means I’ll still have the approval of a ten-year-old child when I’m 70. And in my book? That is fucking awesome.