Questioning My Long-Held Beliefs

Don’t ask me why, but I am always amazed, and mildly amused, by the beliefs I have cherished most of my life. I do hate a rude awakening.

My mother assured me throughout my youth that I had brown eyes. I accepted this as fact until age forty-one, when someone looked closely and said, “Your eyes aren’t brown. They’re greenish-brown. Maybe gold.”

Gold? Who knew I had been walking around with treasure in my sockets?

It had never occurred to me to question the color of my eyes. If Mom said they were brown, who was I to create a commotion or conduct an iris investigation?

The same thing happened with my height. The maternal side of my family produced tall people. My grandmother was nearly six feet tall. My mother was five-eight, her sister five-nine, and her three brothers all topped six feet. Coming from the womb of giants, it was understood that I, too, would be tall, thin, smart, and clever.

Well. My younger sister reached about five-seven at her tallest. My older sister was around five-five. And me? I always said I was five-five and a half, somehow believing that made me practically the same height as my willowy baby sister.

Then came the purse incident. I was shopping with a friend and selected a huge handbag. My outspoken companion said I couldn’t buy it because it was too big for me.

I stared at her as though she had misplaced her senses and pointed out that she was carrying a bag the same size.

She explained, slowly, in case I was on the dense side, that I was small and she was bigger.

I argued that we were the same height. She laughed. Not a polite laugh. A full-bodied, no-mercy laugh.

Between giggles, she pointed out the obvious: I was five-five. She was five-eight.

Then, looking down at me, she added that she could see the part in my hair.

From above. It was a blow to have reality corrected after a lifetime of knowing I was tall. Since then, I have also had to reconsider thin, smart, and clever.

Sometimes life is hard. Sigh.