The Bathrooms Are Still Teal

Twelve years ago, I dropped my twin boys off at preschool for the first time.

I made it back to the car. I did not make it much further than that. I was so overcome that I drove straight to the paint store, picked out a teal I had no plan for, went home, and painted both upstairs bathrooms. Walls. Ceilings. All of it.

I didn't care if it matched anything. I didn't care if I even liked the color. I needed to do something. I needed a physical representation of what was moving through me that morning, because my babies were growing up and they were old enough to go to school. Preschool. Just preschool.

The bathrooms are still teal today. They still don't match a single other thing in my house. And I have never once considered repainting them.

This morning I dropped those same boys off at the bus for their first day of high school.

They did a five-week summer program. They did two weeks of orientation last week. Neither of those touched me. But today, as I drove away, I smiled and I cried at the same time, filled with pride and joy over who my boys are and who they are becoming.

I still see them sometimes as preschoolers. And as every version of themselves in between. And I am aware, in a way I wasn't at that paint store, that the number of mornings they'll be home is finite now. It's counting down. So I find myself even more grateful for the moments.

Years ago I started a tradition. On the way to school, we listen to "Best Day of My Life." They still humor me, even in high school. They still let their mom have that.

I know they're nervous. Excited. Maybe a little scared of what's ahead — high school academics, high school sports, high school social life. And all I can do now is trust that I've prepared them. That I've instilled in them the power to make good decisions, the power to believe in themselves, the power to work hard.

Tonight is their first high school soccer game. I get to be there and watch them step onto that field.

So yes, there's some sadness as I keep mourning the loss of my little boys. But there is tremendous pride in knowing those little boys are now young men, in a place that will teach them the values to be successful, to stay humble, and to be kind.

Why the teal still matters

Here is what I understand now that I didn't understand at the paint store.

I wasn't decorating. I was marking.

That morning meant something, and I could not let it pass through my house unrecorded. So I made it permanent and slightly ridiculous and impossible to ignore. Every single day for thirteen years, that color has said: this mattered.

The song works the same way. It costs three and a half minutes. It requires no budget, no planning, no coordination. And it has quietly become the container my boys and I have poured a decade of mornings into. They don't humor me because the song is good. They humor me because the ritual tells them, every single time, that this drive with them is worth marking.

That's the whole mechanism. A moment that gets marked becomes a moment that gets remembered. A moment that gets remembered becomes part of how someone understands their own significance.

The part that isn't about my sons

Every person you work with is silently asking the same question my boys were asking on that bus this morning: Do I matter here?

And here's what I see in organization after organization. We are surrounded by transitions we let pass completely unmarked.

Someone's first day. Someone's fifth year. The person who quietly carried a project across the line while everyone was watching something else. A promotion announced in a Slack channel and never mentioned again. A departure handled with a card that circulated for signatures at three desks.

These are all paint store moments. Every one of them. And we drive past them because we're busy, or because marking them feels like it requires a budget, or because we're waiting for the version that's polished enough to be worth doing.

My teal bathrooms are proof that's not true.

They don't match. They were not thought through. Nobody consulted a designer. They were chosen in about ninety seconds by a crying woman who needed to make an invisible feeling visible.

And they are the most meaningful design decision in my entire house.

The organizations that get this right aren't the ones with the biggest recognition budgets. They're the ones where a leader notices the moment while it's happening and does something — anything — to mark it. A specific note instead of a generic one. A ritual that repeats until it belongs to the team. A three-minute song on the way to school.

Because when people know they matter, everything changes. Retention changes. Loyalty changes. Discretionary effort changes. Revenue changes. But it starts with someone deciding a moment was worth marking.

Tonight

Tonight I'll be in the stands watching two young men walk onto a high school field for the first time.

They won't know I'm thinking about a paint store. That's fine. The marking was never for them to understand — it was for me to make sure I never forgot.

Look around your organization this week and find the moment you've been driving past. The first day. The quiet win. The person who has been showing up beautifully and hearing nothing about it.

Then go get the teal paint.

I help leaders intentionally create moments that remind people they matter, because when people know they matter, everything changes. If your team has been driving past its moments, let's talk about what marking them could look like.