Get the Look

Yesterday was orientation for the new fall semester and it went really well. I learned some new classroom strategies and also felt affirmed in some things I already knew. Overall, the day was really great.

Then my hair got frizzy.

I don't know about you, but my hair is like, the bane of my existence. Strong language, yes, but maybe you don't have fine hair that has to live through Tennessee humidity every year.

I will spackle on my makeup, take painstaking showers, and wear perfume, but whatever polish I manage to possess via these things is quickly diminished by strands of almost, not-quite curly, frizzy hair that WILL puff up, even after I have conditioned, gelled, and sprayed it within an inth of a millimeter of every hair follicle.

And that kind of ruins my day. I end up talking to people, trying to work, attempting to look professional, all while stuffing my hair back into a ponytail or frantically pulling up my sunglasses, trying to push back my stray wiry curls.

And I'll obsess about it, plan other ways of how to fix it, and generally be very, very worried about it.t

I'll page  through magazines, sighing over the hair columns, and try ways to "Get the Look." It never works. I'm thinking mainly because I don't have a team of stylists getting my hair ready for a photo shoot. Need to look into that.


I've spent a lot of hours (probably amounted to entire weeks or months) of my life devoted to worrying about my looks, my hair, my clothes. But as I get older, meet more people who are wiser than I, I am starting to learn to ask more often: Does it really (really?) matter?

Not whether we shouldn't be thoughtful of our appearance as occasion calls for it, and not whether we all don't want to look our best. But really, how much does it actually matter? How much weight does it bear in relationship to important things like, well, relationships? Other people? Good work? Love?

Um, a very very small amount.

See, when I get caught in the thinking that every nook and cranny and inkling of my appearance is of cosmic significance, I turn into a fearful, conniving individual. Defensive. When I assume that everyone is judging me, I suddenly find myself judging them, silently evaluating their clothing, inspecting their makeup, analyzing their skin, all rather than actually listening to them, learning more about them, hearing their ideas. Asking how they are.

It's an odd two-sided coin: when I work so hard on my looks, I kind of forget to look at other people.

It's natural, can't help it, to see the appearance. But when that's all we zero in on, man, there's a ton that we miss, both in others as well as ourselves.