Forgetting about Myself

Well maybe this won’t strike you all as that funny, but for me, who is obsessively overly occupied with myself, it was a great inside joke with myself. 🙂

This morning I had the treat of a PJ date. A friend of mine and I have tea dates every few weeks and commit to staying in our PJs, (no shower, no makeup) just because we can and it’s fun to be cozy and comfy with each other. So, in true spirit, I didn’t put makeup on this morning and actually didn’t even brush my hair (partly because I knew what a kick she’d get out of seeing how it made such odd-looking matted spots in the back–we have similar hair). So you get the picture, funky matted hair, not a speck of makeup, yoga pants.  Yeah, beautiful.  So then she left and the day got busy, and I did finally pull on old jeans and a (dirty) sweater but left the rest as it was.  We had company coming over for dinner tonight, a family we’ve recently become acquainted with, but who we’ve never spent time actually sitting down with before. They had blessed us with some plants for our yard and I really wanted to make the evening special for them.

So, I made dinner, lit candles, even set the table (that is a lot for me!), set out sparkling cider, got the lighting just right. Jeff came home early and it was wonderful.  At the last minute I thought maybe I should run up and change clothes, so I asked Jeff, “Should I put on a clean sweater?” He kind of gave me a funny look, but just said, “your sweater is fine.”  Ok, fine, so I sat and snuggled and read a book to Dutch instead.   So they came, we had an awesome evening together, super fun, we totally hit it off.  And just as they were packing up to leave the husband made a comment about our half bathroom (how big it is). We walked in there to talk about it and I looked up and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror–yikes!–hahaa, I almost started laughing when I realized I still had the matted, knotted bed-hair, the zero-make-up face.   I hadn’t even realized.  They gathered their things and left and I stood smiling to myself, realizing how fun it is to forget myself.

Not that going without makeup or brushing hair is a big deal. I’ve certainly seen people like that, run to the store like that, etc. But what was fun was just getting so engrossed in wanting the evening to be fun and special for them that I totally forgot to even look at myself! And you know what, that’s probably part of the reason we had such a wonderful night.

I still think that it’s part of being respectful that we make ourselves look nice for each other, as part of showing that we value each other. But it was a fun little moment, even if it was short-lived, where a little forgetting about myself was just the perfect thing.