Comparison is the Killer of Joy

No matter what we do, most of us will never look like supermodels or celebrities and comparison is the killer of joy.                       

The celebrity cult has a great deal to be responsible for.  The bearer of much heart-ache and disappointment for many young people nowadays, taken in by the digitally enhanced photographs in magazines and today’s You can be a star! society.

Mr Jules likes to touch famous people.  He brushes past them or taps them on the shoulder ever so lightly believing that some ”star” dust will rub off onto him.  To date he has touched: Bjorn Borg, Bjorn Borg and did I mention Bjorn Borg?

I don’t believe in “star” dust, being a pragmatic kind of girl and having grown up in the tougher outreaches of North London as opposed to the quaint shoreline of the Lake of Constance where the only bad thing to happen was the loss of Gumperli the family cat when Herr Fischer, the train driver who also married us, failed to apply the brakes in time.  My quaint side is overshadowed by the cynic within.  I scrutinize, investigate, look for the truth.

I once spent an evening in the company of a famous Knicker Designer.  Well to be precise she was on an adjacent table to mine at a Charity Ball here in Geneva and I got a good view and yes she does eat. But I wanted a really close up view so when she got up to go to the Ladies I followed her, my heat-seeking Exocet engaged. I wanted to know more about this Knicker Designer.

Let me FIRST say this:  She is the only celebrity I have met who looks better in the flesh.  She is bambi personified, a gorgeous bichon of a face which appears somehow square and ordinary on camera, on top of The Body.  So I stumble after her into the Ladies and there is no-one there.  I hear her peeing in a cubicle (I hear the Knicker Designer Peeing!) but she has left her clutch bag and a wispy piece of organza shawl by the double basin and this is the first clue.  They are taking up a lot of space, she has owned that space before being caught short and having to go for a pee.  Not wanting to be caught hanging around when she came out I go into an adjoining cubicle, whistle a few songs, then out I come.

Still only elle et moi in the Ladies.  This is what happens:  I aim for the sink expecting her to move over or say excuse me and remove her bag and wispy bit.  She is taking up the whole space in front of the two basins.  The Body is everywhere and I have to slink around her to quickily wash my hands, and then squeeze in the 2cm gap between her and the paper towel machine to dry them.  There is space around the Knicker Designer.  She likes space and is used to space and such is her life that she is not aware just how much space she is taking up of other people’s space.  I as yet have not made eye contact as I am annoyed at this stage and I start to feel that she resents this. I get the feeling that I am not doing what I am supposed to do, drop to my knees and sweep the floor in front of her, and normally I would at least smile or acknowledge her presence, anyone’s presence at the basin with me and swap commiserations on visible bra straps, melting make-up and collapsing chignons, but the space issue is annoying me.

I leave the Ladies before her, huffily slamming the door and walk back to my table.  So?  enquired my husband sotto voiced still grieving for Gumperli, no doubt.  I shrug my shoulders.  “To be expected. Which is a shame.”

Don’t compare, it will get you nowhere.  Go find out the Whys, Hows and Whats.  There will always be an answer with a price attached to it.

Bjorn Borg.  Now there’s a true star with the right sense of “space”.

Copyright Julesritter.com April, magnolias in bloom 2008