Month: July 2023

The past seven years or so have been a slow ride down the side of a mountain into a ravine as far as my looks are concerned. I drastically changed my life such that vanity went out of the window a long time ago. I gained about 25 pounds, my hair has never really looked chef’s kiss in a long time and my face has relics of angry eruptions. I never really look at myself in the mirror. I recently went for a walk with someone and he mentioned (in amazement) that I never looked at my reflection in windows as we walked. This is something I kind of recognize.

The drastic life change is the first factor that led to this reflection-blindness that I practice. However, another is quite possibly age. The life change saw my interpersonal interactions reduced to nearly none. For the first time in a very long time, my days stretched ahead of me with no regard to how someone perceived my looks, my abilities or my personality. Each day, I was my true, authentic self because I did not tailor the presentation of myself to the person or situation in front of me. That was so refreshing! It was almost like an extended period of vegging out at home eating ice cream while wearing ugly sweatpants. Except I was out and about. The other part is that I’ve hit the age where I don’t care about trivial things the way I once did. Someone else’s perception of my looks is pretty trivial at this stage.

Despite my blatant disregard for my looks, it is during the past few years that I’ve had men (young ones especially) go out of their way to tell me that I’m sexy. Little did they know, this phrase is the kiss of death. The only times I’ve consciously dressed to look sexy is when I would go to the club to party. I haven’t done that in years. I did/do dress in clothes that I consider to be fashionable and flattering because I did dream of being a fashion designer after all. That is to be expected.

This past weekend I experienced two incidents that made me really look at myself in the mirror. Saturday, I was walking into a building. There were people leaving and one of the women in that group of people held the door open for everyone. When my turn came to enter, she continued holding the door for me. I said thank you to her for holding the door open for me (there have been so many times the door is released as if I’m not even there). As I walked in, she exclaimed that I was so beautiful. I thanked her and was about to walk away. She then explained that she was a photographer and that I was very beautiful. At that point, it felt awkward because I could feel myself the undivided center of her attention. After having performed in a talent show years ago, I recognize being the undivided center of attention is overwhelming for me, be it one person or a roomful of people. I also had to pee (thus the reason for me coming into the building). Nature’s call ended the Joe Cocker moment definitively.

Sunday, I was on the metro and a man entered. He walked past me and sat down. Once seated, he said hello. I said hello in return and he immediately exclaimed that I was so beautiful. He repeated it quite a few times. There is a slight disclaimer to this one – he was an alcoholic and had already imbibed quite a bit of the 40 ounces the bottle held. He wasn’t completely out of his head because we had a conversation until he arrived at his stop. Before leaving, he said that he wished he could take a picture of me with his phone because I was so beautiful.

I have no idea what magical mojo was swirling around me this past weekend but it obviously made me beautiful in a way two strangers felt the need to effusively tell me, in no uncertain terms, that they found me to be beautiful.

I’ll go with it.