For weeks during my cold commute in and out of Boston, talk radio heated up with debate about the candidates vying for our open Senate seat. "Blah, blah, blah…" they droned on, "blah, blah, blah." But one evening as I sat at the stop light on 1A in Revere pondering what really happens in the building formerly known as "The Green Spot", I heard a word I don’t normally hear in politics. "Blah, blah, TRIATHLETE." Huh? Did they say Scott Brown is a triathlete? So I turned the radio up, listened a little closer and confirmed via internet the next day what I suspected. Scott Brown is hot.
But before you call me superficial, it is not entirely my fault. I grew up in the same society as you- one that puts heavy emphasis on physicality. And whether we like it or not, we are judged by others in a matter of seconds based only on our appearance - a sad irony considering our entire life can be shaped by the one factor we have absolutely no control over- mom and dad’s genes. In fact, our appearance can affect everything from our love life to our value in the job market. And while it is unfair for something so superficial to carry such importance, it is a sad truth many of us learn at a young age.
I spent chunks of youthful years wasted with worries of being teased about my appearance. Getting ready for high school was like getting ready for battle. I would start with the tightest girdle available, a torture I wouldn’t dream of bestowing upon myself today. I did my hair for what seemed like hours. If it didn’t come out right, I’d rewet it and do it over again until I got the perfect Farrah Fawcett-ish flip. I would dress, redress and dress again worried that every clothing and hair choice would provide more fodder for fools to harass me. But no matter what I did it, it was clear my lot in life was to be a target for teasing. I can still feel the pit in my stomach walking down the long main corridor in high school, hugging the wall as I passed by the cool cliques, praying to be invisible which was preferable to their scrutiny. And while I can laugh now at some of the lame names I was called, I still feel the pain of that young girl who found the most difficult part of school not to be her studies, but being studied and judged by her own classmates.
But who really determines where we fall on the beauty scale- others or ourselves? In hindsight, I believe that in the range from The Elephant Man to Olivia Newton John, I was probably somewhere in the middle, and it wasn’t my appearance at all that made me a target for bullies- it was the fact that they knew their words could hurt me. My weakness was not my early development, but my low self-esteem about it.
At some point in our lives, we have all been subject to the storm of judgements that rain down upon us. The difference is that some use their self-confidence as a raincoat, letting the critiques roll off, while others are like giant sponges, absorbing criticisms and carrying the weight of those hurtful words their whole life.
So who suffers a harsher reality check - the child who discovers that not everyone thinks they are as pretty, handsome, smart or talented as their parents told them they were? Or the child who never received that validation in the first place, to the point where they can’t accept a sincere compliment without thinking of it as a charitable donation? In the end, it is up to us to make the life changing choice to judge ourselves as harshly as we are judged by others, or to foster the self-respect that projects our true beauty to the world.
Which brings me back to Scott Brown, who is still hot. But less because of his physical appearance, and more because he is so obviously confident and comfortable in his own skin, even when he too was being criticized because of his appearance. And while I won’t disclose whether Brown got my vote or not, I will disclose that I have wrung out my sponge, and am investing in a heavy duty raincoat as more showers are expected.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Sometimes Socially Awkward
I stare at my empty Facebook status line for a minute, and type "Beth O’Grady is… sometimes socially awkward at holiday parties". Within minutes, my wall is flooded with sympathetic responses: "Who isn’t?" "Me too!" "Me three! " "I’m ALWAYS socially awkward!" and my favorite, "Ask me about my Christmas martini story!" It became quickly apparent that I’m not the only one who, when inserted into a party situation, goes from a composed, articulate, confident woman to a stuttering, nerve-wracked, watch-checker planning my escape.
What is this phenomenon that allows me to be perfectly comfortable on a high-pressure sales call, conducting a department wide meeting or acting as host for a charitable event, yet unable to carry on a normal conversation at a house party. At a recent holiday get together, my exit lines included wishing my Jewish friend a jolly "Merry Christmas!" and exclaiming loudly "Hi, how are you?" as I hugged someone goodbye that I had spoken to all night, causing me to leave the party desperately desiring a goodbye do-over.
Speaking at a large event is different from the intimacy of a social situation. In a way, it is less personal when you are representing the greater good, rather than just trying to be yourself. Give me an opportunity to talk about a cause I believe in, or to thank someone for his or her good deeds, and you better grab a comfortable seat. But when I’m the one seated on the sofa clutching a plate of cheese and crackers, being asked "So what’s new?" I’m tongue-tied.
You would think it would be easy for me to converse, considering I just have to rehearse the wittiest answer to the question "So, are you still running?" which is ironic as I was alive 43 years before I bought my first pair of running shoes. But it beats answering the 2nd most popular question, "So, how’s the newspaper business?" which is an immediate good mood killer. Actually, I’ve never been good at small talk. I like big talk. I like big talk about big issues. Even better if the issues have no right or wrong answer, so the conversation is more about feelings than facts, such as "What is our purpose in life?" "Is there life after death?" and "What makes one person evil and another kind?" These are conversations that generally do not take place over shrimp cocktail.
In fact, I’ve always been this intense when it comes to conversation. At around age 10, I remember drawing diagrams of the universe in my room with my friend Betsy, to illustrate my belief that there was a planet hidden behind the sun just like earth that we can’t see because the gravitational force of the universe kept it out of sight. Betsy just started at me, nodded, and asked if we could play with our Barbies instead.
Or perhaps it has to do more with the limited time factor than the topics of conversation. While you might think that seeing someone only once or twice a year would result in stimulating catch up conversation that lasts for hours, for me it’s just the opposite. Intimacy can’t be rushed in a few minutes. It unravels slowly over months or years of shared experiences. It takes trust and understanding to earn the confidence to confide. It is much easier to delve into deep discussion that unravels over hours of road running than a forced five minutes over a cup of eggnog.
But don’t cross me off your 2010 holiday guest list just yet. This year I’m going to do better. I’m going to be more prepared for possible topics that could come up during conversation, and when all else fails I’ll ask the one question that everyone seems to be able to relate to "Do you find party conversations awkward or what?"
What is this phenomenon that allows me to be perfectly comfortable on a high-pressure sales call, conducting a department wide meeting or acting as host for a charitable event, yet unable to carry on a normal conversation at a house party. At a recent holiday get together, my exit lines included wishing my Jewish friend a jolly "Merry Christmas!" and exclaiming loudly "Hi, how are you?" as I hugged someone goodbye that I had spoken to all night, causing me to leave the party desperately desiring a goodbye do-over.
Speaking at a large event is different from the intimacy of a social situation. In a way, it is less personal when you are representing the greater good, rather than just trying to be yourself. Give me an opportunity to talk about a cause I believe in, or to thank someone for his or her good deeds, and you better grab a comfortable seat. But when I’m the one seated on the sofa clutching a plate of cheese and crackers, being asked "So what’s new?" I’m tongue-tied.
You would think it would be easy for me to converse, considering I just have to rehearse the wittiest answer to the question "So, are you still running?" which is ironic as I was alive 43 years before I bought my first pair of running shoes. But it beats answering the 2nd most popular question, "So, how’s the newspaper business?" which is an immediate good mood killer. Actually, I’ve never been good at small talk. I like big talk. I like big talk about big issues. Even better if the issues have no right or wrong answer, so the conversation is more about feelings than facts, such as "What is our purpose in life?" "Is there life after death?" and "What makes one person evil and another kind?" These are conversations that generally do not take place over shrimp cocktail.
In fact, I’ve always been this intense when it comes to conversation. At around age 10, I remember drawing diagrams of the universe in my room with my friend Betsy, to illustrate my belief that there was a planet hidden behind the sun just like earth that we can’t see because the gravitational force of the universe kept it out of sight. Betsy just started at me, nodded, and asked if we could play with our Barbies instead.
Or perhaps it has to do more with the limited time factor than the topics of conversation. While you might think that seeing someone only once or twice a year would result in stimulating catch up conversation that lasts for hours, for me it’s just the opposite. Intimacy can’t be rushed in a few minutes. It unravels slowly over months or years of shared experiences. It takes trust and understanding to earn the confidence to confide. It is much easier to delve into deep discussion that unravels over hours of road running than a forced five minutes over a cup of eggnog.
But don’t cross me off your 2010 holiday guest list just yet. This year I’m going to do better. I’m going to be more prepared for possible topics that could come up during conversation, and when all else fails I’ll ask the one question that everyone seems to be able to relate to "Do you find party conversations awkward or what?"
Monday, February 1, 2010
Same Weather, Different Age
My heart sank as I watched the national weather service foretell of the enormous East Coast blizzard that hit mid December. To make matters worse, I was listening to this forecast from Chicago, on what was suppose to be a long anticipated, stress-free weekend getaway.
It started with a cryptic email weather warning from my mother just after we settled in from the airport. "I know you just got there, but maybe you should try to get a flight home. They are predicting a huge snowstorm and the airports will be closed". The only difference between my mother and TV weather broadcasters is an official degree in Meteorology, so I hesitantly turned on the weather channel and hoped for the best. Instead, I heard the worst. "We are tracking a snowstorm of mammoth proportion bearing down on the East Coast", "20 or more inches expected in Washington, DC", "Boston should be under the full effects of the storm early Sunday afternoon", which was the exact time we were expected to fly home. And just like that, my vacation weekend became a 3-day vigil of watching, worrying and whining.
But I wasn’t always this stressed about the weather. In fact, I use to be quite the opposite.
As a kid, I would pray for snow and lots of it. I wouldn’t be happy unless it was a full blown Northeaster with so much wind driven snow that I’d have to jump out the 2nd floor window onto the back porch to shovel the back door open from the outside in. My mother would bundle me up in so many layers my limbs wouldn’t bend. I’d waddle out to build my snow fort, which I would load up with dozens of snowballs in preparation for attack. If it were a weekend storm, my father would toss us into the car with our old-fashioned toboggan and head to Gallows Hill Park for survival sledding. No plastic saucers for us. Our sleds had steel blades so sharp, you risked being impaled if you rolled off and into the path of oncoming traffic. If you couldn’t afford a sled, you would use a piece of cardboard, which worked well once you mastered the trick of hanging onto the slippery sides with your mittens. Otherwise, you’d slide off and come to a dead stop mid hill, unable to get out of the way due to excessive bundling, watching horrified as the screaming faces of kids laying stomach down on their bruising bobsleds bared down upon you. I’d stumble home from my winter play day, one mitten on, one mitten lost, crooked hat caked with frozen snow and face flushed from freezing fun.
But somewhere over the years, I stopped seeing the magic in the weather, and started to see anything but a nice day as a major inconvenience.
Instead of sleepless nights spent thinking about snowman building, my dreams are disturbed by the distinct crunch of the city snowplow barricading my driveway. Could I possibly be the same person who would crouch outside my mother’s bedroom door, straining to hear Al Needham read the school cancellations on the Salem station, and bursting into happy hysteria when I heard the magic words "All schools, every school, in SALEM"?
Back then, every season, every storm was a new playground. When I was 7, a giant summer downpour inspired me to run up to my room, put my bathing suit on, grab the shampoo and a bar of soap and run outside to see if I could take a shower in the rain. As the door closed behind me, it slammed on the words of my father’s warning "run out that door now and it’s the last shower you’ll take this week" (word to the wise- even the heaviest rain does NOT wash soap out of your hair and eyes, so think twice before doing this). Now, instead of running outside in an excited frenzy, I run down the basement to see if it has flooded.
The same fall leaves that were a landing pad for a long jump, are now a long day of manual labor, and the summer heat wave synonymous with a beach play week now turns me into a sweltering ball of uselessness, drained of energy and crouching in front of the air conditioning for relief.
But before I admonish myself for having a bad attitude, I need to remember where I live. This is New England, after all, and talking about weather is the mainstay of our conversation. Its tradition for us to complain- its who we are, its what we do. And being the good student that I am, it seems I’ve earned my Master’s Degree at the New England College of Complaining.
It started with a cryptic email weather warning from my mother just after we settled in from the airport. "I know you just got there, but maybe you should try to get a flight home. They are predicting a huge snowstorm and the airports will be closed". The only difference between my mother and TV weather broadcasters is an official degree in Meteorology, so I hesitantly turned on the weather channel and hoped for the best. Instead, I heard the worst. "We are tracking a snowstorm of mammoth proportion bearing down on the East Coast", "20 or more inches expected in Washington, DC", "Boston should be under the full effects of the storm early Sunday afternoon", which was the exact time we were expected to fly home. And just like that, my vacation weekend became a 3-day vigil of watching, worrying and whining.
But I wasn’t always this stressed about the weather. In fact, I use to be quite the opposite.
As a kid, I would pray for snow and lots of it. I wouldn’t be happy unless it was a full blown Northeaster with so much wind driven snow that I’d have to jump out the 2nd floor window onto the back porch to shovel the back door open from the outside in. My mother would bundle me up in so many layers my limbs wouldn’t bend. I’d waddle out to build my snow fort, which I would load up with dozens of snowballs in preparation for attack. If it were a weekend storm, my father would toss us into the car with our old-fashioned toboggan and head to Gallows Hill Park for survival sledding. No plastic saucers for us. Our sleds had steel blades so sharp, you risked being impaled if you rolled off and into the path of oncoming traffic. If you couldn’t afford a sled, you would use a piece of cardboard, which worked well once you mastered the trick of hanging onto the slippery sides with your mittens. Otherwise, you’d slide off and come to a dead stop mid hill, unable to get out of the way due to excessive bundling, watching horrified as the screaming faces of kids laying stomach down on their bruising bobsleds bared down upon you. I’d stumble home from my winter play day, one mitten on, one mitten lost, crooked hat caked with frozen snow and face flushed from freezing fun.
But somewhere over the years, I stopped seeing the magic in the weather, and started to see anything but a nice day as a major inconvenience.
Instead of sleepless nights spent thinking about snowman building, my dreams are disturbed by the distinct crunch of the city snowplow barricading my driveway. Could I possibly be the same person who would crouch outside my mother’s bedroom door, straining to hear Al Needham read the school cancellations on the Salem station, and bursting into happy hysteria when I heard the magic words "All schools, every school, in SALEM"?
Back then, every season, every storm was a new playground. When I was 7, a giant summer downpour inspired me to run up to my room, put my bathing suit on, grab the shampoo and a bar of soap and run outside to see if I could take a shower in the rain. As the door closed behind me, it slammed on the words of my father’s warning "run out that door now and it’s the last shower you’ll take this week" (word to the wise- even the heaviest rain does NOT wash soap out of your hair and eyes, so think twice before doing this). Now, instead of running outside in an excited frenzy, I run down the basement to see if it has flooded.
The same fall leaves that were a landing pad for a long jump, are now a long day of manual labor, and the summer heat wave synonymous with a beach play week now turns me into a sweltering ball of uselessness, drained of energy and crouching in front of the air conditioning for relief.
But before I admonish myself for having a bad attitude, I need to remember where I live. This is New England, after all, and talking about weather is the mainstay of our conversation. Its tradition for us to complain- its who we are, its what we do. And being the good student that I am, it seems I’ve earned my Master’s Degree at the New England College of Complaining.
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