I often wonder how other women learn the secret rules and rituals that I never seem to grasp. How do they know what colors are in fashion this season? How do they know what hairstyles make them look hip and up to date? Are there secret meetings in an undisclosed location? Meetings to which I am never invited?
For most of my life I failed to even wonder about these questions, but at some point in my late thirties I came to the realization that other women knew things that I just didn’t seem to know. It was a bit disconcerting, a bit alarming, but I wasn’t sure how to fix the problem.
Most of the time I can just shrug it off. I mean, so what if it took me a year to recognize that scarves were the height of fashion and another year to collect a group of them and learn how to wrap/tie/arrange them. Who cares that just when I learned how to wear a scarf and arranged them by color in my closet, scarves fell way out of fashion. It only took me a half a school year to wonder why no one else was quite as scarf swaddled as I was.
I have accepted my fashion failures, but there are other, more important skills that so many other women seem to have learned without me, too.
I don’t know how to pick out curtains. Especially if I want them to match my furniture or hang from attractive curtain rods. When it is time to paint the rooms of my house, I have no idea what colors are popular. I don’t feel the shifts when furniture styles come and go. Even garden favorites seem to change from year to year. How do others KNOW these things?
I never learned to wrap a darling gift with matching bows, even though my mother and both sisters can do it. I never learned to make gracious comments in social situations. I just never did.
As I stand in a group of colleagues or friends, I am aware that I don’t have the right jewelry or phone or shoes or purse. I haven’t been watching the right TV shows or listening to the latest music. I have missed bits of gossip, changes in the curriculum, updates on marriages, engagements, pregnancies, retirements and promotions. I don’t know the ongoing jokes.
Some day I am going to get some answers. I’m going to figure out where and when they all meet and swap secret handshakes and decide what to keep and what to throw away. Someday I am going to walk right up to one of my friends in her silver bangle bracelets and knee length pencil skirt. I am going to admit my cluelessness and just out and out ask for some help.
“So”, I will say casually. “What’s the password?”
All of those women are wondering what your secret is. Thank you for sharing it. ❤
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And did scarves really go out of style????
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I THINK so! I’m still trying to figure it out……!
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Wow! Right on! Always wondered if it was just me because of all the years working with the geeky side of business……if you get the password….wanna share?
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We must have both been in the bathroom when they handed out the code, Mo!
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I need that password too. I’m always tickled when my mother-in-law says the color I’m wearing is popular this year. Little does she know I have been wearing that color for the last thirty years because I like it.
By the way, I have the greatest mother-in-law in the world. She’s just in style and I’m not.
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You can proudly say you are an individualist……no need to follow the trends then :-).
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I don’t have the password either. Black clothes all around! And scarves aren’t out because 2 of my most fashion forward friends are still wearing them regularly! 🙂
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I’m with you Karen, but I don’t know if I want the password at this point in my life. I think the world would tilt on its axis if I ever became fashionable. 🙂
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Ha! Did I write this? I am the same way. But then, I often never feel like I like what the styles are either. I’m trying to learn to take notice a little sooner. I am late to come to the style party too. Scarves have been around awhile and they’re growing on me, but I don’t know how to wear them. I’m scared to buy one. I took my six-year-old out the other day and she came down with skinny jeans and a top on and had wrapped a scarf around her neck in the cutest way. I said, “How did you do that?” I guess she can teach me all of this fashion stuff soon.
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Oh, man, you bring back a great memory! I was shopping once with my 4 year old daughter (who is now 26, gorgeous and stylish). I reached for what I thought was a very nice sweater, and she said, in a very stern voice, “Mom. No more black or blue. You need to buy something red of purple.” I have been taking fashion advice from her ever since!
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