A Last Impression
I was surprised when my friend randomly said one day, “You are always dressed nice. I am always very casual. You are small. I am large. You always have your nails and hair done. Mine nails are never done and my hair is cut short so I don’t have to do anything with it! You always wear make up. I never do.”
As I read the list I was actually mortified someone would actually compare them self to me. After all, who am I? I am just another woman who happens to share many of the same friends, and in most ways, very like minded as my friend. What difference does it make that I choose to dress nice, even if I rarely go outside my home other than grocery shopping once a week and to church services on Sunday? Does it really matter?
I remember many years ago reading a ‘self help-marriage kind’ of book, (I can’t even remember the title), which made a lasting impression. It might be the only thing I really recall from the entire book! The author was discussing how wives get up (or don’t) in the morning to see their husbands off to work. At the time my husband was not yet retired and we had several little ones at home. So mornings were somewhat challenging. But the author said, “How you present yourself to your husband first thing in the morning is the last thing he sees before going to work.” That hit home.
I made the decision to rise early enough to be completely “done” before my husband got out of bed. I wanted his impression of me during his work day to be one that would make him smile, rather than filling his memory files with what I looked like without makeup, hair all askew and a bathrobe! Did it make a difference? I don’t know. I’d like to think so. I know when I look at me in the mirror before I am “done”, it makes me cringe. Certainly he must have too!
All that said, if how I look to my husband first thing in the morning is important, how much more important is how I look when I arrive at work? People from all walks of life, will have the opportunity to make a judgment call on the way I look, just like my husband. Does that matter? I think it does.
But another side of me wonders if that is all fair? Consider the person who is ‘different’ be it by choice or disability. Does the person who has a disability have the option to change the way the he/she looks so that the population which surrounds him each day will think more positively of him? Not always. Sometimes disabilities are hidden, and many people might not even know about it.
But what of the person in the wheelchair; or one with a disfigured hand; pronounced limp or other visible impairment? Do I have the right to frown upon this person? I think not! Yet don’t we all make assumptions based on visuals?
Some will argue how you dress and look matters a lot! Employers and colleagues judge us by our appearance. We are assessed on our attire, table manners, grooming and even the way carry out our duties. Perhaps in some degrees that is important. But what is more important is how we perceive the person—- especially one who is disabled. We need to first see them as someone with abilities rather than one with disabilities!
Like my friend who noted our differences, and my husband who left each morning with a more pleasant visual of his wife than not, our appearance does matter. It matters in the workplace, in our social events and even in our home. But ultimately as long as we are at our best, when we can be, it’s the person on the inside that really matters.
Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/s/photos/nature