I’m Not A Barbie Doll!

For much of my marriage, I occasionally suspected my husband had wanted a Barbie doll and was mildly disappointed to discover that his wife came with opinions, comfortable shoes and absolutely no interest in being dressed for someone else’s approval.

He placed a great deal of emphasis on my appearance. He liked my hair a certain way, preferred particular outfits and sometimes pouted when I did not dress according to the picture he had already assembled in his head. Apparently, somewhere between “I do” and ordinary married life, I had unknowingly agreed to become a middle-aged fashion doll, dressed to someone else’s specifications and accessorized with reading glasses and a steadily growing resentment of unsolicited wardrobe consultations.

The problem was not that I disliked looking attractive. I have always enjoyed clothes, makeup and putting myself together when the mood strikes me. I simply objected to the idea that my appearance was a community project requiring input from a man who believed pouting constituted persuasive communication.

Looking back, I understand that the clothes were only the most visible part of something much larger. Throughout my life, people have had ideas about who I should be, how I should behave and what version of me would make them most comfortable. I was supposed to be attractive, but not intimidating; intelligent, but not argumentative; independent, but still pleasantly accommodating. I could have a personality, of course, provided it coordinated nicely with the outfit.

Women are handed these contradictory instructions almost from birth, then blamed when we cannot follow all of them simultaneously. We are expected to age gracefully, which appears to mean aging without looking as though we have aged. We should take care of ourselves without becoming vain, remain youthful without appearing desperate and dress for our age, although no one has ever successfully explained what sixty-one is supposed to wear. Perhaps there is a government-issued cardigan I neglected to pick up.

Journalist Pauline Frederick once observed, “When a man gets up to speak, people listen, then look. When a woman gets up, people look; then, if they like what they see, they listen.” Women are often seen before they are truly known. Our appearance is evaluated before anyone considers what we think, what we value or what we might have to say. Being looked at, however, is not the same as being known. Admiration feels lovely until you realize it is conditional upon remaining exactly as someone first imagined you.

A doll never changes unless someone changes her clothes. A woman, however, changes constantly. She grows, questions, tires, awakens and occasionally decides that the shoes are ridiculous and she would rather go barefoot. She may leave a marriage, leave a career, move across the country or begin speaking with dead people professionally, which was certainly not included in the original Barbie Dreamhouse package.

When I left teaching and stepped more fully into my work as a psychic medium, I was not simply changing careers. I was allowing a truer version of myself to become visible. That version was less concerned with appearing conventional, less willing to squeeze herself into a life that had become too small and considerably less interested in whether everyone approved of her outfit.

Transformation rarely arrives looking polished. Sometimes it looks like confusion, restlessness or the uncomfortable realization that the life you worked very hard to create no longer fits. Nothing may be obviously wrong, yet something inside you keeps whispering that you are no longer where you belong. Unfortunately, the soul has terrible timing and rarely waits until everything is convenient, financially sensible and color-coordinated.

Many people come to me for a reading because they believe they need to know what will happen next. Often, beneath that question, they already sense the answer. They know the relationship has changed, the career has run its course or the person they have been performing no longer resembles who they have become. What they need is not someone to hand them a new identity; they need a quiet place where they can recognize the one already emerging. Guidance can illuminate the path, but each of us must eventually decide whether we are willing to walk it, preferably in shoes we selected ourselves.

I still enjoy getting dressed up. I like feeling attractive, wearing something beautiful and walking into a room knowing I look good. The difference is that I no longer confuse being pleasing to someone else with being true to myself. Those two things occasionally overlap, but when they do not, I know which one I am choosing.

I was never meant to remain frozen in place, smiling politely while someone else decided who I should be. None of us was.

Barbie may have had the dreamhouse, the convertible and an astonishing number of careers, but she never had the one thing I value most: the freedom to become inconvenient.

I am not a Barbie doll.

Thank God. My knees could never survive those heels.