With my horrible Spanish title, I am plunged into memories of a mission trip to Mexico where this random guy HATED me for some reason far beyond my scope of comprehension and I distinctly remember him saying to me after witnessing my attempts at conversing with the locals, “Heidi, I wish that you wouldn’t even try to speak Spanish, the way you butcher it so” or some sort else type snobbery and condemning styled comment. and I have no idea why I’m still talking about this other than the timing of this coincided with other painful memories of a by-gone era: my awkward teenage years.
“What triggered this journey into years past?” you ask me, slightly concerned. Well, I tell you, wondering if that should have been in quotations since I started out this paragraph using them and am now answering you without using them so it seems wrong somehow, but whatever, I’m trying to get to my point here so stop judging me you elitist English majors! and so I got my drivers’ license renewed because I moved and needed to change the address and it was humiliating. Yes, there’s the connection with the previous story, being humiliated when trying to speak Spanish. Being humiliated because I was so socially awkward in high school and desperately wanting the approval of my peers. This new license has brought me back and brought up painful thoughts.
I felt so responsible, actually getting my address changed on my license within a year of moving. I know it’s within 10 days of moving, but at the last house I forgot for over a year and it wasn’t a big deal. I just gave them my new address and presto bingo, they handed me a new license. NOT WITH THIS ONE, HOWEVER. Of all the grrrr’s. Everything was going fine until they said, “OK, stand over there to take your picture” and I was like “What?? What? ummmm, I didn’t know that I’d have my picutre taken today!” desperately looking around, “ummmm, ummmm, I have a hat on! My hair is greasy, I didn’t know you were going to take my picture, do you HAVE to take my picture? ummmmm, ummmmm. Ummmmmmm.” and she just stared at me. “Take your hat off for the picture please.” “ummmmmm, ummmmm, I have to go to the bathroom!” and I took off down the hall in a panic. My hair was every bit as bad as I remembered it looking before I put my hat on this morning. There was no counter in there, just a sink, so I set my expensive Tano (not the cliche’ one) in the sink, trying not to think about all the germs and grossness there and started to dig around, distracted by the sound of running water all the sudden. CRAP! the sink was one of those automatic thingies and it was soaking the fine leather! I snatched it out feeling like I wanted to scream. My hair was a schliched back, greased up, frooey at the ends disaster. I tried to part it, to smooth out the ponytail-ed bent up ends cause hair looks better down in these type of pictures, and looked for some sort of lip gloss only to find my trusty cherry chap-stick. Why didn’t I put on eyeliner? Very grrrrrrr, of all grrrrrrr’s this is the most grrrrrrr-iest.
I tried to walk calmly back to the lady to make up for my slightly hysterical departure a minute before. Like, I was too calm, overly cool all of the sudden. She eyed me suspiciously and I walked over to the white picture wall before she told me to and faced her like I was facing a death squad. I smiled merrily, trying to look confident because confidence is sexy even with greasy hair and no make-up. CLICK. (Actually, there wasn’t a click, it was digitally done with their camera in the computer.) and ohyikes. I know you are thinking what a drama queen I am. and you are right. But the picture is every bit as horrible as I imagined it might could look in my worse case senario. Not that I think I’m Heidi Klum, but man alive, do I really have that pale of skin a double chin? Oh my my my. If I would have seen this picture after getting my horrible drivers license picture when I was 16 I would have driven myself into the lake and saved myself all this future angst. OK, OK, not really, but I’m feeling verbally excessive right now. Go with it. The worst thing is that if you look at my face, you can SEE the attempt at nonchalance, it’s written all over my face. Oh and what else? I didn’t realize it but my my cowlick in the front of my hair acted up and my hair is slightly over one eye like an 80’s style icon. Beautiful. Check it out for yourself…