āYouāre so pretty!ā
Exhibit A in things I didnāt expect to hear buying milk.
Turns out the teenage girl working the register was blown away by my eyes. āAnd you canāt tell if they are blue or green or what!ā
Okay, itās true. About the color mystery I mean. My birth certificate and driverās license say blue, but they just as often look green or grey. Itās all about the lighting and what Iām wearing. I used to spend time trying to puzzle out what color they actually are.
And then I decided it didnāt matter. I mean, I never even notice anyoneās eye color.
Maybe thatās a me thing. Itās on the long list of body stuff I donāt bother labeling about myself. How curly is my hair? Varies day to day. Exactly what shade is it? I dunno, do the white hairs and darker hairs taint any description.? What do you call my skin color? Is the skin that sees the sun daily any less or more my ārealā skin color than the skin always hidden away? Is my skin oily or dry? Lip shape, face shape, eye shape, body typeā¦Heck, I have no idea of even my own height and weight!
I just donāt care. Maybe thatās why I dress about as fashionably as a Hollywood bag lady and my attempts at makeup make me look like a deranged clown! LOL
But, TBH I do like the impossible to pin down nature of my eyes. And I canāt deny it didnāt kinda delight, and perplex me, that anyone else actually noticed.
The fact is, no one ever calls me pretty. I mean, my Mom did, but thatās someone that loved me. When I was young I was bullied for everything about myself, including those eyes. Once I got older I just stopped hearing anything at all. Which is good, I guess. Compliments are like finding an 8 leaf clover.** Itās something you know is hypothetically possible, but you never expect to personally encounter.
Anyway, a random compliment from a stranger can really feel lovely. Weird, hard to figure out how to process, but flattering!
**Actually I have an eight leaf clover somewhere. Growing up I had a superpower for finding four leaf and above clover. I have, embedded in resin by my father, a four leaf clover as big as my hand that I spotted from a moving car. To this day if you open books from that era dry clover come fluttering out. Iād gone off it, not finding any at all for years and yearsā¦until a couple patches in the yard in town proved amazingly productive. (Iād joke about mutations caused by whatever the neighbor puts on their yard, but considering the reactions Iāve had to whatever they are dousing it with, it may not be a joke.) Iām living proof that you donāt get luck from them. If luck is a tradable commodity then maybe you actually burn through it finding one.
