Favorites are just comfortable pigeonholes

I have a friend (Whaddup, P.V.?) who will every so often ask me out of the blue what my favorite something is. Color. Flavor of ice cream. Film. She never gets the answer she’s looking for.

The answer is that there’s really no answer--favorites change for me like Imelda Marcos changes shoes. Okay, there are things I like more than others, but asking me to pin down a definitive favorite anything is pointless. There are always variables to consider when choosing anything for, well, anything.

While I do make a habit of answering the inevitable “What’s your favorite” questions in the most maddening way possible--it’s fun, fight me--I really do consider all the questions I start to throw out in reply. Favorite color? What am I doing with this color? Am I wearing it? Am I decorating a room? Am I buying a car? Those are all different favorites of the same thing, and then there are sub-categories. I mean, rooms don’t have to be all one color. My favorite color for a t-shirt is vastly different from a color I would choose for an evening gown. (Not that I ever have occasion to wear evening gowns, but you get my point.) Besides, color is a spectrum. It has shades and hues. It’s all very well to say “My favorite color is blue,” but what does that really mean? There are infinite possibilities within the confines of ‘blue’!

And food? Forget about it. My favorite is whatever I feel like eating in the moment, and if I’m not hungry, good luck getting an answer out of me at all. (Of course, the opposite is true if I’m hungry and in a grocery store because then everything is my favorite, but I’m pretty sure that’s just being human.)

I sometimes think my world might be all gray. No black and white, just shifting, moving, living shades of gray. Nothing is definitive. Everything has wiggle room. It’s strange for someone who lives her life by a calendar, by to-do lists, by structure, to be so loosey-goosey at the same time. Chaos scares the shit out of me, but at the same time so does being bound by the confines of regulation. This is one thing I really, truly have never fully understood about myself in a ‘bigger picture’ capacity. I get it through the lens of creativity and work--and previously, school--which is to say that ‘controlled chaos’ is definitely my jam. Give me the parameters but grant me free rein within them, ya know? But in life it somehow feels like it should work differently. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s just me creating my own boundaries for the sake of comfort, except that they’re not so binding that I can’t fly.

“Don’t give me that boundary shit. You don’t get to force your boundaries on me. I’ll make my own, thanks very much.”

I guess that sort of makes sense.

Favorites, though? They seem like they can transform into the most rigid kind of boundary if you let them. “I like Mexican food best,” can turn into “I like this one burrito from this one taqueria and absolutely nothing else,” and okay, there’s comfort in that, but what if there’s another awesome burrito out there that you never discover because you’ve earmarked your ‘favorite’ and you don’t shake things up a little?

Maybe it’s my personal definition of ‘favorite’ that needs some fine-tuning. In my mind, if someone says, “My favorite crackers are Ritz,” I immediately think ‘name brand’. It doesn’t have to be that. It could be house brand. The Ritz-lover might not be fussy. After all, it’s very similar to that whole tissue/Kleenex thing--it’s a square of paper you blow your nose with. We say ‘Ritz’ and we all know what that looks like, but it doesn’t have to be The Definitive Ritz.

Or maybe it’s just preference. I like choice. I don’t like the thought of being shackled to something because I once said, “Hey, I really like that thing, it’s my favorite!” Come to think of it, that’s actually something that’s happened to me. I like giraffes. They were my ‘favorite’. Somehow word got around, and now I’m elbow-deep in giraffe paraphernalia. Have been for years.

Maybe what I have is a favorite-phobia as a result. Nightmares of being buried alive underneath mountains of giraffe soft toys and figurines and mugs and t-shirts and who knows what else…

You know what? I have preferences. Those preferences are subject to certain criteria. I don’t like pigeonholes. I refuse to knowingly and willfully paint myself into corners.

Speaking of painting, room decor revolves best around a neutral shade. I prefer cool grays (not too blue). And absolutely not beige! If your background is subtle, you can spice things up with all your kitsch and knick-knacks. Throw pillows. Go full-blown Property Brothers if that’s your jam.

It’s your room, after all.