Style Master

On April 22nd of this year I received what I considered the greatest fashion compliment of my life. I wore the ensemble pictured above to church. I styled this outfit myself so naturally I had to document it & post it on my Facebook page. I received a few comments complimenting my ensemble but one definitely stood out from the others. There was a girl from my high school, let's call her "A" (very Pretty Little Liars of me huh?), who was the queen bee of us all. She was tall, thin, beautiful, popular, had wealthy parents, & I wanted to be her with all my heart & soul. I had the "privilege" of becoming one of her accessory friends which was an acceptable consolation prize at the time as I was the chubby sarcastic girl hangin' in the corner. The accessory friends got invited to hangout whenever she wanted the attention of more than 10 people at once, she was on a 24 hour boyfriend hiatus, or if she was having a party & invited the entire student body.

She had her clique of girls but God help you if you weren't in it because she could be quite the mean girl. I longed to be accepted by her and even when I saw her around town when I came home from college on summer break I would be just as enamored with her. I sent her a very expensive bouquet of flowers once because I had heard she was dealing with some difficult family matters. She never once said thank you but like a fool I continued to show my allegiance to her. She of course married well, had 3 beautiful little children, & maintained her queen status even in adulthood. Although I am older now and found acceptance & success outside of her presence, I still took great care to stand tall when passing her in the hallway at church because I always revert to that nerdy teenage girl every time I see her.

She bestowed upon me the honor of accepting my Facebook friend request which really only meant that I could torture myself by looking at hundreds of pictures featuring her perfect life. She has only commented on two or three of my posts in the two years that we have been Facebook buddies and those were actually comments I had tweeted about the reality show The Bachelor. I can't blame her for that because my comments are rather witty & probably more entertaining than the show itself (or so I'm told by one of my college professors who also enjoys them, yes that is very strange). Then came April 22nd. I received a notification that someone new had commented on my post so I pulled up my little page and I saw a comment from "A". The comment she left read "Seriously you are a style master! I'm totally jealous!" I couldn't believe it. To have someone of her caliber give me a compliment like that made me feel like I could conquer the world....well the fashion world in a small Midwestern town.

Ironically enough, just 3 weeks after the epic comment I found out that she had decided to leave our congregation over a series of petty issues that were originally the petty issues of her closest friends. They had all gone to a new church across town and took pleasure in posting passive aggressive comments every Sunday about wonderful everyone was there and that they were so glad to be a part of an accepting community. A very close friend of mine left our congregation a few months prior but she & her family left quietly & never spoke an ill word about anyone & quite honestly they would have been well in their right to do so given the circumstances. They also knew that it would not have been fair as the issue only concerned a few people and leaving was truly one of the most difficult decisions she has ever made. They found a new church home that is a great fit for their family but that was only after several months of trying out different ones in the area. "A" tried out two churches which both were occupied by the petty friends. She then shared how glad she was to have found a new church home after an entire 2 weeks of searching. She too now shares how much better her new church is along with the others. It was in that moment that I realized how shallow she remains to be. I am glad to have finally accepted this fact after 15 years of wasting my energy trying to impress her but unfortunately it has tainted the compliment.

Lucky for me I know that I am still pretty fashionable even if I have to say so myself which I generally do. Now I am waiting for a truly epic compliment which I now believe should come from the J.Crew goddess herself Jenna Lyons. She is the president & creative director of the company and lives in New York so I'm not exactly sure how I would just happen to bump into her & get such a compliment. Hmmm....pricing flights to New York as we speak & dreaming big.....

Growing Pains

Graduation season is upon us and it always reminds me of my graduation ceremonies. It's so exciting because you are finally done with classes so you feel like you can finally breathe again but it can also be very nerve racking because you're not completely sure of what awaits you out in the big world. You go through so many changes after high school. You lose contact with friends that you thought you would have forever but form intimately close bonds in college with people you just met. Then you leave college and go out into the workforce where you meet even more new people and learn the harsh realities of life like rent, insurance, backstabbers, & glass ceilings. For some reason I thought I would get all of my changing & learning out of the way in my 20's but the truth is I feel more lost now than I ever have.

I've finally come to terms with the fact that my life is nothing like I thought it would be at age 30 but I'm having trouble discovering where I want it to be. Since most of my friends are either married and/or have children I'm having a hard time finding where I fit in. I finally went to that singles group that I was invited to at church. It's a group of 7 career women who are also single. They are very nice and I was pleasantly surprised that they weren't a group of desperate women all crying about their singledom like other groups that I have visited in the past. They are funny, educated, and sincere but they have been a group for quite awhile now. They were very welcoming but being the newcomer is difficult because they are all very close and their lives are very intertwined. They meet twice a month and I've gone twice so far but I still feel awkward. I'm not really sure why I'm surprised by that because I feel uncomfortable in any situation that takes place outside of my room. I have recently discovered that I get a weird feeling in my stomach when I meet new people. You only have one chance to make a first impression & I try so hard to present myself as a chic positive person that I can't even enjoy the interaction. I still struggle being comfortable in my own skin and I'm not exactly sure how to completely surrender that.

Things at work are still going well. I passed my 6 month probationary period and my supervisors tell me I'm doing well. Unfortunately I still don't have any real responsibility but I'm learning a lot and the experience is so valuable to my career. Somedays I get depressed wondering when I'm going to have a real career. For example yesterday I spent the entire day scanning documents and filing while others got to go into meetings making big financial decisions for our organization. On the surface I know my job is important. I gather information that our directors need to make those big important decisions so they rely on me to get things right but I can't help wondering how neat it must feel to go into those meetings with the bigwigs wearing a nice suit and making 6 figures a year. I understand that most of them have several years of experience so I guess it just comes with time. My goal now is to make a good impression with the small stuff in hopes to get a really good recommendation from them when I'm ready to move on and work elsewhere.

Moving is the other thing I've been thinking about. This town was great to grow-up in but as I have evolved I'm finding that it doesn't meet my city girl dreams. Maybe moving away and starting fresh somewhere else would be a good thing for me. Being here only reminds me of failed dreams and desires and there isn't alot of opportunity for advancement. That would be a big step for me. The last time I moved it was to a town much smaller than this and it was easily the worst decision of my adult life. But I can say that I have at least learned from those mistakes so I hope that in moving away will make it easier for me not to look back.

Oh and to make things worse the ex has been in contact with me again. A month ago he promised to come here and take me out for an apology dinner. He was finally going to say to my face all the things that he supposedly wished he had said when we were still together. We were supposed to meet up one weekend in May. Well guess what, here we are the last weekend in May and he has made no plans to meet me. I like a fool actually believed him. I hadn't heard from him in about 3 weeks and then last Friday he texted me to chat as if we were old buddies. He of course didn't acknowledge the promise he broke or pretend to make plans to see me. He at one point did give up some random excuse for not speaking to me for the last few weeks which of course I don't believe and all it did was upset me all over again so I've been moping around for a week thinking about all the pain he caused and realizing that the wounds have not healed. I wanted my apology so I could move on with my life but I'll have to find a way to do it without it.

What hurts the most is that after all he put me through he didn't even think that I was worth a real apology. As you'll remember he texted me an apology 2 months ago but if he was sincere in being honest with me he would have at least called me on the phone. If he really wanted to see me to make things right nothing would have stopped him from coming here. After much self reflection over the past year I now know the only reason I became involved with him in the first place was because I didn't know my worth. I didn't realize that I deserved so much more than he was ever willing to give me and it is now painfully clear that he never will either. As I continue to evolve into whatever woman it is that I'm meant to be I'm finding that the process is just as painful as it was in college. I worried about making friends and making the right choices to invest in my future and I'm still worried about those same exact things now.

Sad stories aside, I have decided to spend my summer doing things outside of my comfort zone. I already have two trips planned to see some college girlfriends of mine. I realized that the last time I saw one of them was easily 7 years ago and that it much too long. As great as Facebook is, it cannot substitute human interaction and seeing them may bring me the joy that I've been searching for. I also hope to go to restaurants I've kept telling myself I want to try but have never gone inside. I want to try new workout methods and read some new books that I've been hearing about. I will continue to go to the singles group and get to know the ladies and hopefully do some networking with a young professionals group that I recently found out about at work. I choose to think positively about the next 3 months and I'm hoping to discover a lot of interesting things about myself. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that I'm actually brave enough to do these things....