The kids crowded around me, holding up objects or pointing to nearby trees, buildings, flowers, and benches, shouting, “What color is that?” To the boy grasping a leaf, I replied, “green,” and they all groaned in disappointment.

It was summer 2013 and I was working at a camp for gifted youth. That morning I visited a science classroom during a lesson on genetics. The instructor had gone through numerous hereditary traits, asking students to raise their hands if they had the characteristic as he went down the list. When he came to color blindness, the only hand in the air was mine.

I have an inherited degenerative eye condition that is quite the package deal – one of the hallmarks is color blindness. The term can be tricky, as it is applied to both the inability to see color at all and the interpretation of color in atypical ways. I have the latter. So where a color-normal person might see dark blue, I could see black, purple, or green. Or blue – it’s impossible to predict what my eyes will do; I’ve even thought something was one color one day and a different color the next.

In 2013, color blindness was still new, so I felt slightly uncomfortable when everyone in the classroom stared at me. And I was overwhelmed when they bombarded me with questions later. At the time, I felt that there were right or wrong answers when it came to color – if I said orange and someone else said pink, it was like I’d failed a test, like I was less competent because I couldn’t perform this basic task. After all, one of the first things we teach small children is the words for color, and I, a grown woman in my 30s, often gave wrong answers to questions most two-year-olds would ace.

Since then, though, I’ve started to think differently about color. I’ve done some research and discovered that our names for and understanding of color are influenced by culture and language. I’ve traveled the world and seen this in action, finally learning to laugh when I found myself surrounded by strangers in an open-air market arguing over whether the scarf I was interested in was pink, magenta, fuchsia, or red. I realized, with unutterable relief, that there was no right answer.

Now, for the most part, I’ve stopped asking about colors. And when I do, I frame the question as though I’m seeking an opinion, not an authoritative judgment. If I enjoy a color, that’s enough for me. I do sometimes like to know what other people are seeing, but it’s a matter of curiosity and I don’t get upset if someone’s description of a color isn’t what I was expecting.

I just think of Lucas, who was the last one left when the other students tired of the “what color is this?” game and drifted away. I smiled at him and admitted, “It’s not always easy.” He pondered this and then looked up at me. “No one,” he said, “sees the world the way you do.”

That is a great answer.