ithinkyoushould. Lighten up!

So here’s the thing. I’m not ALWAYS off my rocker, vexed about some happening here or there. But lately, I HAVE been. The reason? Well, my girls are sick. As in cough-cough, spew-spew, wipey-wipe the runny nose over me, their mother, the human tissue. It’s ok. So far, I haven’t caught anything except the emotional onslaught of being a mom with 2 sick little girls. They ARE getting better so it’s cool. But it has been a helluva week. And then some. A few days ago I read some article somewhere and I wanted to share it. With my friends. Except I don’t think I really have any friends because people don’t really respond to me when I write stuff. I usually write long-winded chatty things about something I’ve read about, and I don’t know whether people find me boring, or annoying or simply do not care to respond. Like the other day I told a friend that I hoped she was doing well, but that my girls were sick and she responded by saying, “We’re all doing great. Take care!” And I thought, ‘Wow. Nothing eh?’ But misery loves company and I suppose I was looking for a little sympathy because I was tired of being a Mommy Martyr and I just wanted somebody to ask about me. Well, she wasn’t it. And then I wondered why I couldn’t “relate” to my so-called friends, but I can have the BEST conversations with random service people.

For example, today I decided that I was going to buy myself some real blasted face cream and not that Oil of Olay sh*t that women are duped into believing is good. What is an “Oil of Olay” anyway? What does it mean? I KNOW what oil means, but what does Olay mean? So I go to Clinique. The women wear white lab coats, the packaging is clinical green. The design of everything is clean and neat and sparse and the pricepoint is well, it’s getting up there, but it’s kind of “proven.” I trust the Clinique women because their skin often looks good. Clinique was always about the “3 steps” and that makes sense. So I dash in telling the woman my life story about having 2 sickish beautiful little bunny girls, and feeling stressed, and feeling dry in the face and basically frumpy, etc., and she tells me that my skin is “beautiful.” She shouts it practically. And I go, “really?!” and I have to look in a mirror, after which I make a screwface, and she goes, “YES, really!” and I go, “come on…” And she’s like, “seriously, what’s the problem?”

So I tell her “my problem” and she sells me a moisture with 25 spf. And then I ask about a face cleanser. And we talk about cleaning my face. And then I tell her that I need to get some face cream for my husband so he doesn’t use mine, and she says “right this way.” And then we chat some more and I say, “Wow, you really do have this awesome aura about you.” And she smiles, and says, “Well, you know, it’s really simple, my philosophy is to just give you what you want. I don’t pressure sell people because we do really know what we want, we just need someone to help bring it out.” And I was amazed and I tell her that her skin is great-looking too. And she says, “Really?!” And I go,  “Yes!” And she goes, “No, look at the zits on my chin.” And I say, “Really?” And then she grabs my arm and tells me that the “issue” with Women is that we are so self-critical and so busy projecting our insecurities onto nothing, about basically nothing, and NOBODY ever [even!]sees what we think we lack. And I thought, wow she is so right. I think I do need to lighten up a bit. And the way to do that is to buy yourself a little face cream. I think this might help you to lighten up too!