Mirror, Mirror

This morning, I woke up and I knew that something wasn’t quite right.  I looked in the mirror and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  I called the girls in to look at me and the looks on their faces were priceless.  They didn’t know whether to laugh or cry either.  I clearly had an allergic reaction to something and my face,  especially my eyes, were impressively swollen.  And I don’t mean maybe.  I honestly can say that I never looked so horrible in my life.  Thankfully, within the hour, it was better.  I still was not going to win Miss America (I guess it’d be Mrs. America at this point in my life) but I, at least, was fairly confident that I wouldn’t make small children cry at the sight of my face.  I headed in to work, laughed about it all day and thought…well, this will be a great blog post.  Anywho…

All day, it made me think about how we are so caught up with how we look.  I surely don’t consider myself vain.  I mean I care about what I look like to some degree, but … I shop at Old Navy.  Let’s be real here.  I have been known to run in to Big Y to grab some milk and strawberries immediately after running 12 miles.  Clearly, this is not done by someone who is really concerned with the visual impression she will make on others.  However, I DO care when it comes right down to it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we never thought about what we looked like? 

I saw a mom at school pick up yesterday who was wearing  a Kermit the Frog winter hat.  She CLEARLY didn’t care how she looked and she is probably much happier than most of us.  She’s certainly happier than ME right now, but truth be told, I’m still a bit swollen as I type.  I look approximately 73. 

Or how ‘bout kids (especially little boys) who leave the house with massive bed head?  They don’t care.  They have a great day and pay no mind to the folks who are laughing at them and running behind them with a wet comb.

It would be so refreshing to go to the beach and not worry about Every. Little. Thing. (Perhaps I’m the only one who thinks this way.  But I think not.)

It’d be so much easier to get ready in the morning.  “Clothes thrown on the floor from yesterday – sure I’ll wear you again. No one cares.  No one even pays attention!  Spaghetti sauce spilt on the knee from last night.  No mind.  Put ‘em on.  I’m walking out the door!”

It’d be so much easier to get ready to go out at night too.  “It doesn’t matter if this makes me look fat, flat, matronly or like I’m trying too hard.  It doesn’t matter.  It.  Doesn’t.  Matter. How. I. Look."

And yet, as I sit here it DOES matter how I look.  It affects your whole day. At least it does mine.  I don’t like thinking that way, but I do.  Except when speaking to a select few, every time I spoke today, I was feeling so awkward.  I talked to parents and even told them (not in this long drawn out blog kind of a way) about this reaction I was apparently having.  They KNEW what the deal was, but I still felt so self-conscious.  That’s silly. 

Even with this ridiculousness, I am happy to say that I very good at making fun of myself.  I always have been.  THAT’S important to me too.  As far as I'm concerned, there's no need to take myself too seriously.  G is the same way.   I hope that we are teaching H and M how important that is…unless they suddenly wake up and look like this. 

They may, then, want to re-think their perspective.