So Long, Skipper

Women talk about just about anything under the sky.

Men. Lack of men. Their bodies. Politics. Dreams. Fears. Food. Whatever can fit into The Three Categories - Past, Present, Future.

But we never talk about playing with dolls as little girls.

So I have no idea of knowing if this is a Me Thing or an Everywoman Thing, but my attempts at creating stories for my Barbies, Skippers and Whitneys always wound up turning into stories about me. Skipper might have walked into the pizza parlor to meet up with Joe McIntyre, but Vickie took over just as Joe Doll started singing "Please Don't Go Girl." And it was always Vickie who wound up in a rigid plastic embrace.

It might have looked like Skipper, but oh no. I knew what was really going on.

I think it's continued over the years. I live my life with what seems to be a completely different take on me than everyone else.

I don't look like the me in my head.

B let me raid her digital camera files today, so I could update the photos on my myspace account. I wanted to do it because I easily fall prey to the narcissistic nature of myspace; but also because The Boy now has a profile. I wanted him to see how dazzling I can be. Wait. Scratch that. How dazzling I am, dammit.

(Hey, I'm going with complete honesty on here. Go with it. This is my logic.)

I hated every image of myself that I found. B's good with a camera, don't get me wrong, but I just didn't look right. Big nose here. Weird smile there. I looked puffy in that one, like a ghost in the next. Strange. Bizarre - UGH! What? That's not me!

"Are you adding them?" B asked as I stared at my computer screen.

"Um, I'll add them later," I replied.

I've got to settle this difference in perceptions - my take and life's take on me. After that is accomplished, I'll turn to being happy with what reality shows me. Flaws and all.

I spend so much time worrying about what others think of me, how they view me, partly becasue I don't want to have to take an actual, honest look in the mirror and take stock in what I am. Who I am. I've let myself cling to the idea of myself as, for all intensive albeit embarrassing purposes, Skipper as a Grown Up.

It's time I started to get to know Victoria.