Some days I feel ordinary, nothing special, and just plain average. My breath smells in the morning and my underwear doesn’t always match my bra. Occasionally, I have only one earring on or walk around with smudged black mascara which no one takes time to tell me about. Sometimes I compare my ordinary self with Suzie next door who looks like a million bucks walking out of her house every morning. Makeup on, hair blown dry and wearing actual pants not athletic wear and a baseball cap. My self confidence takes a tumble, but should it?
Suzie’s kids have combed hair, minty fresh breath, and help each other into the car every morning. My kids have bed head hair, cereal breath and argue all the way to school over who put a booger in their backpack.
I don’t always make my bed and the crumbs under the rug have been living there for years. I never look under my couch cushions unless I need extra change for a latte. When I went over to Suzie’s house for book club, her house squeaked when I walked in it was so clean. I lost all hope when I saw the bathroom and the toilet paper was folded into a V.
I sometimes eat directly out of the cottage cheese container and serve peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. My kitchen towels don’t match my oven mitts and the napkins don’t match the place mats. At Suzie’s for the PTA tea, napkins, plates and food were all in the school colors. Again my hope was shattered when she mentioned she hand peeled the grapes in the fruit salad.
I scan waiting rooms class rooms and bath rooms wondering if other women suffer from feeling ordinary. Other women appear to have it all together, while safety pins and support underwear hold me together. Magazines or television try to convince me the reality of other women’s lives. However, the magazines and television tell me my boobs need to be perky, my thighs free of cellulite, and my skin should be tight as plastic wrap on a fruit salad. Well, my boobs sagged after having kids, my thighs feel like the moon and my skin looks like cheap plastic wrap in hot weather.
Someone once told me we are all extraordinary in some way. Our talents, our smile, our friends, and our existence makes us extraordinary. No other person on this planet of seven billion people look like you or has your life experiences. No one else on earth has your exact set of fingerprints and never has and never will. From womb to tomb we have our own unique set. However, fingerprints or not, some days I just feel ordinary. And you know what? That is ok.
Thanks, I needed this post!