Tired of the Effort

At the Sbux company picnic Friday afternoon, corporate decided that it would bond us if we were given the opportunity to play a single-elimination style kickball tournament against other districts. Whether that worked or not is debatable, but one observation of the whole experience was the need for each district's team to separate out as unique entities, each with a unique twist on a uniform. For my team (the West Side Green Socks), we all wore ugly yellow promotional shirts with green soccer socks and neon green bandannas. Beyond just separating out as a district, we also individually separated out with our own personal twist on the uniform, which probably speaks somewhat to the type of people Sbux hires, but that's not the point. Anyways, since my ugly yellow shirt was an extra large, I decided to tie it in a knot on my back and roll up the sleeves. With the neon green scarf, I noticed that a lot of the other girls were tying them around their hair or waists, so I decided that making a scarf around my neck would be the more "individual" approach. After I had completed this warm-up for the game one of my favorite co-workers commented to a friend about how cute I looked and something to the effect of how she was envious because looking that way for me seemed to be effortless.

The point of highlighting this encounter is not to brag about looking "cute" during a silly kickball game. I think what I've been reflecting about her comment is that I consider my image, whatever it is, to be all but "effortless". In fact, I feel like I put quite a bit of effort into trying to uphold a certain appearance and most of the time, I feel like I fall far short of the image that I try to portray. It seems no matter where I am, that there is always another girl (or 2 or 20) dressed better, with nicer accessories, prettier hair, a nicer figure etc. We woman spend so much time comparing our look to those around us that I think we are completely oblivious to the "look" that we ourselves put forward. My best friend in college would wear a t-shirt with jeans and a pony tail to a social event and turn every guy's head as she walked by. It was obvious to all of us around her, but really I don't think she ever had a clue. In fact we would go home and she and I would complain about how hopeless we felt to ever find a date among girls who were much more fashionably dressed. She's very happily married now so her story ends well at least, but I know she still struggles with some of the same insecurities that she did in college. For some reason I don't think her husband minds that she doesn't always follow the latest trends in her clothing. He probably minds more that she deals with insecurities about her looks (which is absolutely beautiful by the way).

I've always assumed that the awkwardness of female body image would fizzle throughout life, and aided by a loving husband and priorities around a family, would no longer be a forced issue. The lady that made the "effortless" comment about me, though, is one of the women I respect most at work and someone who certainly has a strong relationship with her husband and children. She also radiates "effortless" beauty all of the time. I've always recognized that in her and I think most of my co-workers would agree. From this comment I think she probably hasn't grown out of the need to compare and I have a feeling probably never will. That is something that seems to be true to the female gender unfortunately. I have grown up watching my mom stress about her hairstyle and she does it just as much now in her 50's as she did when she was 30. As women, no matter what age, we seem to be really caught up with the few imperfections we see reflected in the mirror every morning rather that the overall fact that for the most part, women at any age can be beautiful no matter what degree of effort is included in the morning routine, or in my case, the pre-kickball warm up. It saddens me to think that I, and my friends, and my mom, and my co-workers, will deal with this for the rest of our earthly lives.