What We Look Like to Other People

An old high school acquaintance contacted me tonight, somewhat out of the blue. She was probably my closest friend at that time; we were two parts of a triumvirate of girls, kind of geeky, kind of outsiders and yet proud of that status. I went off to university, she got married, the third faded from view as well. In any case we were doing the thing that you do when you reconnect with someone from your past - trade histories, trade current events, basically catch each other up. And as I read my note to her, a response to the very innocent question "what are you up to?" I wondered what she would think as she read it.

Because in my view, I sounded either like the devil-may-care, leaf in the wind, adventurer; or else like a total loser mooching off friends and relatives. I imagine that the reality is that I will come off somewhere in the middle of that. At the same time, I am sure she is wondering what it is I make of her and her choices in life. They are, I imagine, good choices for her. She sounds happy and proud of her family, which is no mean feat.

But I wonder how much we try to sugar coat it for others. No really, I'm fine, no worries, not a care in the world, couldn't be happier, said in much less bald terms. Because we fear that we don't measure up - as is evidenced by my immediate assessment that I either sound really happy or like I am one step away from pushing a shopping cart filled with all my worldly belongings.

It brought me to mind of another such encounter, oddly enough this old and dear friend was there too, now that I think of it. It was at my ten year reunion, surrounded by people who were finishing doctoral programs, or whose professional careers were really taking off, I was asked what I had been up to. I listed the string of things I had been doing, made some off the cuff remark about how I seemed to change not just jobs but entire careers every two months, and felt like an idiot among all these people. But then a woman whose life I very much envied (she was finishing her doctorate at Stanford!) sighed and said, "wow, what an interesting life you are having. I feel so boring, all I've done since graduation is go to school."

These always seem to come as timely reminders for me. A reminder that the mirror I hold up to look at myself is often much harsher than what others see when they look at me; it is a softer light and one that I think I need to see myself in more often.