This post is going to sound like an underhanded grab for compliments ….. but bear with me, it does relate to being widowed and it does ask a genuine question….

I took this selfie this morning on the way to work.  We had a special breakfast in celebration of the Melbourne Cup  – the race that stops the nation.  (Trust me – it’s a BIG DEAL here and the dress code is frocked-up with fascinator).

For those that know me well, I don’t frock up too often so I donned the required garb (it was a toss-up between the flowers or kitty-ears headband) and decided that I looked atrocious but that kids are forgiving in what they think I look like and it was a bit of harmless fun, not to be missed.

So I tottered off to work feeling Quite Ridiculous but feeling in a fun mood. ….. much the same feeling as if I had donned a unicorn onesie for pj day or something.

But the thing is, I got So Many compliments today that I started to wonder if I actually didn’t look quite as stupid as I thought I did.

Now you have to know that my standard dress uniform is a pair of jeans and a t-shirt paired with thongs (Oi! – that’s flip-flops to you) or boots (all of them nice ones of course, not ripped, daggy ones).  …. one of the reasons I like my job is that I can wear neat casual clothes and get away with it.

So wearing a dress, jewelry head-dress and fancy shoes is not a normal day for me.

 

…and I got to thinking that without Greg to let me know he appreciated what I was wearing, I’ve tended to have a rather low opinion of the way I look.  Not a negative opinion …. I just assume that my relative attractiveness is not particularly important to anyone else and so long as *I* felt OK, then it was OK.  …and not to imply that  I am really not a 1950s girl trying to please her man and only dressed up for Greg.  It’s just not something I do for myself anymore.

 

So all the compliments got me thinking that maybe I should change the way I think about myself.  Maybe I shouldn’t just assume that I am bland and unattractive and that I should back-myself more often because DAMN it felt good to be complimented.

 

Almost prompting me to ask “does my bum look big in this?”*

 

So my question for you this week is what do you do to remind yourself that your relative attractiveness  did not die along with your spouse?

 

 

 

 

*  – running joke between Greg and I.  It was how I would ask him if he thought I looked OK before we went out somewhere nice.