Post — Megan Lierley

As a woman in her twenties living in San Francisco, it’d be difficult as of late to not be inundated with brightly backgrounded selfies whenever I scroll through my Instagram feed.

Haters will say the Color Factory’s sole purpose is, in fact, for women in their twenties to create dreamy, colorful content for their social media feeds. They wouldn’t be entirely wrong, however, I absolutely LOVED this place.

I don’t want to give a detailed walk through as it would take away the magic, should you want to see it yourself. (I have a sneaking suspicion they’re extending their two-month run as creator and founder Jordan Ferney of Oh Happy Day posted on Instagram yesterday that the Color Factory is hiring.)

What I do want to focus on is the broader reason I loved the Color Factory so much, that reason being play. After leaving the yellow ball pit, Iain and I were both dripping sweat. Like, embarrassingly, from our hairlines, down our cheeks, not at all ready for an Instagrammable moment. I started thinking and couldn’t remember the last time I sweat from playing. It was such a joy.

Last night, Laura told me she is reading Play it Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety. The book advises you to remember what you loved doing as a child, and attempt to recreate it in adulthood. The yellow ball pit (and the whole experience, generally) was a recreation of childhood play, and I felt so calm and relaxed leaving the Color Factory.

I’ve also noticed that I’ve spent a lot of this summer reading. I wasn’t an athlete (or at least a good one) as a child, so a ton of my “play” was reading The Babysitter Club books for hours on end. As an adult, I’ve challenged myself to check the classics off my list, but this summer, I gave myself permission to read for fun. And it’s made such a difference! It’s, again, so relaxing to unwind with a good page turner at the end of the day.

I’ll save my favorite summer reads for another day, but my takeaway from the Color Factory (aside from the pictures you can see here) is to play more, whatever the word means to you. For me, it’s reading light, exciting books—and I’m happy playing in a yellow ball pit made me realize it.