This morning a very young man flirted with me. It caught me off guard and I wasn't even completely sure that he realized what he was doing until our exchange at the car wash was complete and I had to drive away... and then he gave me a smile with an eyebrow raised. I started laughing on the spot and didn't really feel bad until later. I hope he didn't think I was laughing at him, but he was at least ten years younger than I was (!) and that happens so infrequently these days that the laughing just sort of came out unexpectedly.
I promptly forgot about it until I went to the store this afternoon, this time with Annabelle, and was asking the butcher about his tri tip. Over his shoulder I noticed another butcher smiling broadly at me. I smiled back politely and continued to carry on my conversation. Then, to make his point, he winked at me. I did a double-take, showed my surprise, and he blushed.
Honestly? I looked down at my shirt. It was buttoned.
Then, as we were walking to check out, a third guy was smiling at me down the aisle. I ignored him until he came directly up to my cart, stood in front of me, raised both his eyebrows a few times and then walked away smiling over his shoulder.
I was at a total loss. This is not the sort of attention I usually conjure. Either my lackadaisical not-showering-regularly-during-the-summertime look really works for me, or it's the post-sweat cheek flush from my bike ride in the sun an hour earlier. Or maybe it's the why-wash-my-hair-if-I-swam-in-a-chlorinated-pool look that I'm sporting, along with my "Clean enough!" yoga pants.
On the ride home I remembered a conversation I had shared with another teacher at school who is the mother of a 17 year old girl. Her daughter is gorgeous, a knock-out, and we were laughing about how we were gorgeous when we were 17, but of course had no idea. Then the thought occurred to us at the same time: we should start believing we're gorgeous now, because when we are in our fifties and sixties we're going to be having this exact same conversation.
Of course, in that moment I liked the idea, but now I'm not even sure what it means.
I wasn't going to mention all this here. But today's experience was so unusual (and so rare) and there will be a day in many, many years when Annabelle reads all the things I've written in this blog. And among the wide variety of things I practice, things I preach, and things that just are, I can't help but wonder how I can help my daughter to feel good about herself in a way that is healthy and humble.
This brings me to question myself: how do I feel healthy and humble? How can I be a mother that is able to receive flirtations with a certain gratitude for my own youthfulness and not just look in the mirror and begin to directly criticize myself? I don't want to grow old and grumpy. I don't want to be prudish.
Even as an (almost!) 36 year old, I find it really discouraging and difficult when women don't like to have their picture taken. And I really hate it when a woman tries too hard to look ten years younger than she is! I look around for women that have figured out how to grow old in a healthy way, to accept themselves and be happy about the marvel of change that accompanies the process of aging. It isn't easy to find these women, particularly because surrender is not the same as acceptance. I don't want to resign myself to the process, I want to embrace it. Without botox, if possible. (I cross my fingers.)
I wonder if it is too idealistic, what I am asking to find. Maybe it is unfair - the post-modern woman is still trying to figure out how to do it all: be a mother and wife, have a career, get a good education, have a social life, have hobbies, be interested and interesting. And now I add: be happy about the obviousness of having less time left in life to do it all? I bank on the fact that I have more life to live! That alone saves me an embarrassing amount of stress. Will I be able to, as I hope to do, figure myself out enough that I don't feel that same stress when I have less life to live?
Not sure, not sure.
