Earrings

 

As I was planning to meet someone in real life whom I had been chatting with for three months, I found myself over-thinking every decision related to what I should wear. My great friend Sue was around finishing my massage, and gave me input about what clothes and shoes to wear. She said I should definitely wear a top that showed some skin and cleavage and rejected the long sleeve turtleneck I originally chose. The clunky, ugly black sandals were also rejected in favor of sporty, bright sneakers.

After Sue left, I was left on my own to make my own decisions about getting ready. When I was dressed and made up, I went to choose my accessories. I stopped in my tracks as I was looking through the multitudes of earrings I own. It occurred to me that it was plain absurd to obsess over the decision of which pair of earrings I should wear. I thought that surely my date was at the same time giving almost no thought to what he was going to wear to meet me for the first time, yet, there I stood nearly agonizing over which pair of earrings to put on. I picked out a pair that my son had given me for mother’s day which were a bit jangly and had a pop of blue which worked with the lower cut top I ultimately decided to wear.

I decided to just wear my confident “face” in the end, and try not to really worry about what I looked like, because underneath it all, I know I look fine.

I later sent Sue a text about how I kept laughing about the absurdity of it all. Like, does it really fucking matter which pair of earrings I wear, etc.?

She replied, “If your soulmate doesn’t like you because of your earrings, then your soulmate is a douche.”

The meeting went fine. I don’t know if he was my “soulmate”, but whatever he is, I’m sure it had nothing to do with my earrings.