this is what i've learned

My boss will be so happy that I've completed the class I attended this week. While he usually considers training money to be money well spent, the information I have stored away from this week's class will be useful in all kinds of ways. It will help me as I negotiate terms for agreements, as I interview people during investigations, as I represent the legal department. It will help improve relationships in the office. I can't help but think it will help me in my personal relationships.

That is all good.

But there is something else I learned, completely separate from the book learning in class this week.

This thing I learned--maybe it's because I have short brown, gray-streaked hair. Or maybe it's the wrinkles. Or perhaps it's the extra weight I still carry around. Or that tired look in my eyes that my parents ALWAYS comment about when I visit them. Or maybe it isn't me at all, or perhaps it's the entire me.

But something has changed.

It isn't that my thought process has changed.

I've always, wherever I've traveled for business or with my family, been someone who smiles at and says hello to everybody. I complement people if I like their shoes or sweater or hairstyle. I have no ulterior motive. I think I'm just friendly.

But this trip is the first time I've seen a difference in the way people respond to me. Not my classmates. Or the women I see in stores or out walking. The men.

I think I look like their gramma now. And there is a whole group of men who totally dismiss all but a certain group of women.

Now that I don't have the long, red hair. Or the thin body. Or the smooth skin. Now that the clicking noises are my joints, not my high heels on the floor.

My gramma lost most of her eyesight for the last few years of her life, but whenever we went out and she wanted me to run in to a store to pick up something for her, when I got back in the car, she would always say that I walked like a teenager. And she meant that as a good thing.

Maybe I've lost that teenager walk. Gramma's been gone for almost five years.

So. The people who look at me differently are the men. Or perhaps the guys. The dudes. The ones who are under 30 (or over 30 but think they are still under 30). It used to be that whenever I smiled and said hey, everybody made eye contact, smiled, and said hey back. Now, the guys don't even make eye contact. It is as if I am invisible.

And I think I may have been wrong about guys. I think some, not all, but some must scope out all of the people in a room from the instant they enter the room. Until this trip, before I was even aware they were in the room, they had already seen me and decided I was worthy of a smile or a hey, and I'm starting to think that some of them were wondering in their tiny little minds if--well, I'm not sure what they were thinking in their minds, but I am starting to understand that Jack knows how men think far better than I ever did. And I can hardly wait to get back home to my smiling, hey-how-you-doing, guy. Because even without the long red hair, or the smooth skin, or the wide-awake eyes, or the clicking high heels, he makes eye contact with me and he thinks I'm cute and funny and just right.

btw--he rarely reads my blog. this post isn't for him, it's to document for me the trip that opened my eyes to so many things.