Something new has happened to me since the birth of my second child. I, who got up at 5:30 am to curl my hair every day in high school (after chores), who lived with a family as an au pair and never emmerged from my room without being fully dressed with hair done and makeup on, who only wore my glasses in front of my husband three times before we lived together, have become the bedraggled mother. Not that I looked like a poster for Ann Taylor Loft before, but I tried to do the best I could with what I had; but now, nothing. I can walk out of the house in my glasses with wet hair, and crocs, oh hideous crocs, on and not even flinch. I allow people to stop by knowing full well I will be in sweats. I have friends who have seen me without makeup.
I can, I suppose, chalk some of this up to the shedding of my adolescent insecurities, but mostly, friends, I just don't have the time or residual energy to care. My children look well cared for, or at least not orphaned, and that's all can muster concern for on most days. I tell myself this surely happens to some extent with all mothers: your priorities shift, you get busier, but the evidence in the preschool drop-off line is to the contrary. Mothers with outfits that look as though they were coordinated on pintrest abound, sporting salon worthy, and certainly dry hair. I am momentarily glad that these women do not know me. I, the bedraggled mother, do not fit in among them.
But really, it's a trick of the light, isn't it, an illusion. Catch me on the right day, when I have become sick of feeling like a a frump, and I have probably made someone else feel just this way. Catch the parade of drop off moms on a Wednesday....and who knows, maybe they haven't had a chance to shower, or their socks don't match, just maybe, heaven forbid, they go to Albertson's in their crocs! Or, maybe they are in a season, which I hope lies ahead when the kids are a little older and some thought into one's personal appearance isn't so rare.
In the meanwhile, I am practicing being a little less vain. I'm trying to get to the things that matter, and bizzarely, it transpires that my husband thinks I'm hot without makeup, loathes ballet flats, doesn't care at all about fashion, and doesn't mind my glasses one bit. One day, I'll wear only clothes that flatter and inspire me, and I will practice all those lovely updos I have pinned, but today I will keep perspective on my season of motherhood, I will praise God if I get a shower, and I will be thankful that when the people who love me look at me, bedraggled is not what they see.
