Compliments

My next truth is to talk about something I am never complimented on. I take this to mean something I wish I were complimented on, but am not.

There are many things for which I would never get compliments, simply because I suck at them: housekeeping, cooking, keeping my desk tidy, having style in house decorating and dress, starting IVs, etc. Then there are the hidden things that just aren't worth mentioning, such as driving a car. I think I do it well, and my parents have said so on occasion--especially driving a car with manual transmission. Thanks, Dad, by the way, for teaching me to do that!

If I am honest with myself, though, I always wanted to be the pretty girl and complimented on my looks (but also smart--not dumb and pretty). Classically pretty girls seemed to get a free pass for a lot of stuff, and also got their foot in the door for interviews and fellowships more easily in graduate school. I have a really beautiful blonde friend, whom I love; this is no indictment of her. When we were growing up together, guys would be friends with me to get to close to her. For YEARS this happened. I was the ugly chick with the hot friend. A pack of men at my private high school dated or wanted to date her, and one of them in particular wrote in my senior yearbook that I was important to him because I had introduced him to this friend. Nice.

I was called many names, the most memorable, painful, and lasting being "Moose"--I can credit Clay Bratton for that one, and looking back, I bet that vertically challenged man was threatened by my Amazonian stature. Moreover, my petite, red-haired, fair Irish-Scottish mother had no idea how to help me with my wild, wavy hair; thick, dark eyebrows; hairy upper lip--you get the picture. It was way into high school that one of my friends pulled me aside and showed me the tricks of the trade that she herself used. I am now very well groomed. (Thank you forever, Tory!) I am also not small and frail, but very tall, athletic, and robust.

I am definitely not the American feminine "ideal," and I used to beat myself up for that when I was growing up because that's pretty much all that mattered in the Midwest. Fit in! Fit in! Or be destroyed. I know that's pretty much what happens to teens everywhere in the U.S., but it was far more prevalent in St. Louis than I had ever experienced in England. I had some very wonderful English boyfriends over the years--and one half-Englishman--who never said word one about how I looked. They loved me just as I was, and I loved them all the more for it. My German husband is the same way, except in the early days of our relationship when he tried to be the food police. He has an eating disorder, and I, for one, am not going to let him put it onto me. I tore him a new one for that, and it's been smooth sailing on that topic ever since. ;-)

The good news is that I believe that I have turned from an ugly duckling into a nice-looking fortysomething duck, if not a swan. My recent illnesses have made me very slim. My hair is long and wavy. I have always loved my large, dark eyes with long, dark eyelashes; I have never needed mascara. I have a pretty awesome wardrobe these days. Men other than my husband say that I am attractive now, although I don't like to believe them. Funny how self-image is a very hard thing to erase.

I still wish, though, that I could be the double threat of gorgeous and brilliant.