Come to think of it, saying anything is “the new black” is downright tired, isn’t it? But nothing more original is springing to mind.
I saw a friend this evening who I haven’t seen in a few months. I commented that she’d gotten bangs. She commented that I look tired.
It had been a hectic day. My kids started school today and I ran around town like an obsessive compulsive finding the right kind of pencils and tried to work on the fly via my BlackBerry before picking them up, getting them home and then leaving again for the meeting at which I saw my friend.
Because she said I looked tired, I found myself agreeing that I was exhausted–I must be tired if I look it–but then I realized I actually felt juiced. I had gotten enough sleep, had had enough coffee earlier in the day, and was still relaxed from a recent vacation. I was alert, energetic and in a good mood, a relatively rare confluence of circumstances, when you think about it. I’m usually one or two, but rarely all three at once. I know when I’m dragging my ass, and tonight I was not. I did notice that talking about feeling tired made me feel a little tired.
It occurred to me that I’ve been told I look tired so often in the last year when I was not, that “tired” is now simply how I look, a physical attribute right alongside tall, podiatrically blessed, and Semitic.
Like someone who has wide-set, round eyes it thought to be guileless even though she might be an international jewel thief, or a person with a prominent Adam’s apple is snap-judged a doofus even if he is as smooth as George Hamilton apparently was in his womanizing heyday, my facial features mislead the viewer. Unfortunately, they don’t do so in a way that I can use to my advantage.
There’s different kinds of looking tired, of course. There’s the kind of tired you’d appear when you would stagger home during the morning rush hour in the same clothes you went out in the night before after crashing on someone’s couch for the three hours of sleep you got. That’s the glamorous, fabulous, sexy tired look you can recreate with eyeliner. There’s also the righteous tired look, the kind you get after you build a house for Habitat for Humanity or do a dangerous inversion in yoga. There’s cheek stain for that rosy glow. Those are sought-after tireds.
The kind I have, looking-tired-when-you-feel-fine, not so much (although I suppose if you wanted to achieve the look, you could start with plum eye shadow under the eye and smudge gently with your pinkie.) If tired is the new normal, then when I am actually tired, IÂ suppose I look like shit. But of course, no one says, “You look like shit.” They just say I look tired.
I don’t have any profound conclusions to draw on this subject, except to say I’d much rather feel energetic and look tired than the reverse.
And that I have plenty of concealer.
Photo by MarylinJane CC
September 9, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Don’t think of it as looking tired, think of it as permanent bedroom eyes.
September 9, 2009 at 11:32 pm
I can understand tired. We are on the run constantly. Even vacations can be tiring. But, tired beats old, so I’ll stay with tired. Have you seen photos of those pioneer women? They looked old at 30. At 45 they had the grey bun on their heads and were in the rocking chair on the porch. They were way past tired.
September 15, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Either you are looking tired or, more likely you just have a bitch for a friend. This sounds clearly like a comment no one who really loves you would make unless you broached the subject & admitted you were dragging. This person is NOT a friend.