Saturday, April 02, 2016

Oblivious

One morning about a month ago, my boss came into my office first thing for some intense conversation mostly about residents at the halfway house, but also a little about our personal lives. She was in and out of my office numerous times during the first forty-five minutes of the day. 

During all that time, I never noticed that her hair had changed dramatically from the day before. The style wasn't much different, just trimmed, I think, but the color had gone from an ash blonde shade to something in the burgundy family. 

Worse yet, it came to my attention only when our intern walked into my office and immediately (immediately!) exclaimed, "I love your hair! That color looks great on you!"

Oh, jeez. I apologized to my boss and she waved it off. No big deal. And then, in the next half hour or so, two additional coworkers complimented her hair in gushing tones. 

I launched into a self-deprecating speech about how blind I am and how I really never even noticed and that I just don't notice things like hair and clothes because, I guess, I'm not normal--at least not a normal woman. Even my boss said, "You're like a guy in that way." 

Here's the truth: days go by without me making sustained eye contact with myself in the mirror. I can barely be relied upon to be a steward of my own appearance, to make myself something approaching presentable before leaving the house, let alone notice someone else's cute cut or color or adorable new sweater.

At the office that day, we all laughed it off because what else was there to do? But among women and girls, that noticing, those compliments are currency and I'm flat broke.

B is for Beauty

12 comments:

  1. Since I read your post from yesterday prior to this one, I would say that maybe you are interested in Beauty on the deeper level, so that richness can fill a deeper bucket. Many women, myself included, have wasted too much time concerned that we will go broke for lack of compliments. Let's not be broke, let's just have a different currency:)

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    1. I love that idea!

      Thanks for stopping by and thanks for your kind words, too. :)

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  2. I probably would have noticed the hair color change. I guess I look in the mirror at least twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night. That would be when I'm brushing my teeth. Other than that, no mirror time.

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    1. I think most people--especially most women would've noticed. It was a dramatic change color-wise. I have always known I'm somewhat oblivious when it comes to this kind of stuff. I guess this incident just made me realize it is WAY worse than I suspected. :)

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  3. Just to say I love you, Masked Mom, and I know what you mean about sometimes not noticing appearances. Something I usually fail to notice is people's height. Sometimes when a student stands next to me I find myself thinking "how did I not notice he was so tall?" or "my goodness, she has a lot of personality packed into a little package!"

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    1. Aw, Melanie, thanks and love you too! I am terrible about height as well. This is sad to admit, but even with my own (adult) kids, I am still sometimes shocked by how tall my sons are (and have been for years).

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    2. Melanie! Hi! It's so funny how I keep up a friendship with you on the silly FB and through Marko but fun to see you in blogworld again. Crazy world.

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  4. My dad broke his front tooth a few years ago. I mentioned something about it to my mom a while later. She looked at me weird and said, "It's been fixed for months."

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  5. Okay, I am 1,000% with you on this. I seldom look in the mirror. Period. What's the point? Frankly, it's discouraging and deflating and life is challenging enough. I keep my eye on some other prize (even if I don't know what it is ). I do notice kids and what they are wearing or with what hair style they are experimenting .... but I think that's b/c I know they want to be seen and they are easy and fun to see.

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    1. I like the idea of keeping my eye on some other prize--for sure. :)

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