To see ourselves as others see us...

I am still trying to process something that happened a couple of weeks ago.

To set the scene, it was a busy environment with people coming and going and I was with David's sister Eleanor who at 56, is 7 years older than me.  

The circumstance arose where I had the opportunity to introduce Eleanor to someone who I haven't known all that long myself.   The conversation went like this......(names have been changed to protect the guilty :-)


Me  -  Hi Louise, I don't think you've met Eleanor before.  This is Eleanor, David's sister.


Louise  -  Hi Eleanor, nice to meet you.  Sorry Diane, did you say Eleanor is Alan's sister?


I shall now pause to let the connotation of that question sink in.....are you up to speed?   

Could this woman really think that there is the slightest possibility that I have a 56 year old daughter???!!!!!!

Now, I know most days I feel about 80 but I had hoped I didn't quite look it! 

But this comment on the back of the Tesco delivery man's comment last year about my son taking in the previous. delivery when I wasn't here and the only person I can think it might have been was David, has made me wonder just how bloody old I look!!!

There wasn't time to pursue the conversation at the time as we had to quickly move on, so I won't ever know if this woman genuinely thought Eleanor could be my daughter, or if she did the thing that lots of people do when they don't know us very well, and that is get Alan and David's names mixed up.   

i am hoping when I said David's sister, she was picturing Alan and only asked for clarification because she couldn't believe I I was old enough for Eleanor to be my daughter.    I'll never know.

Anyhoo, when I was sitting in front of the mirror this morning in the cold, hard light of day, I couldn't help but notice the lines round my eyes, my sagging jowls, the dark circles, so I did what any self-respecting woman in these circumstances would do.

I took a selfie, converted it to mono and photoshopped the hell out of it.

Oh and treated myself to a bottle of perfume and some Bobbi Brown lipstick.

I'm worth it.

;-)))


In the words of the wonderful Rabbie Burns in his poem To a Louse


"O wad some Power the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as ithers see us! "


Full poem here :-))

PS. As I said in my comment below, I don't mean this to be a shower me in compliments blip, I just wanted to share my gobsmackedness (new word I just made up :-))