Devoid of Jewelry

Sometimes you encounter a phrase floating by - and then.... what?  What was that again?  Hold it.  Rewind, please.  A few weeks back, a dear friend told me a story that revolved around one such phrase.  It went by and then stopped.  It has rolled around with me ever since.  Seemingly innocuous, annoying as hell.  

A family member of my friend was in therapy.  During a session, the therapist left the room and the 'patient' snuck a peak at the notes on the desk.  I probably would do that.  Or at minimum, I would want  to do that.  And the notes the therapist had written went something like:  "She is completely devoid of jewelry".

Devoid of jewelry.   Those words just sit there.  The therapist wrote those words on a page, to put in a file.  There is something so offensive about it.  I like jewelry as much as the next woman. But that little phrase bothered me, and it's been bothering me for weeks.   Devoid of jewelry.  In a therapist's file.   (It reminded me of an old-fashioned doctor's referring to the "lipstick effect" - he thought he was so insightful by commenting that if a female hospital patient donned lipstick, she was on the mend or showing good mental health.  Trite.  Throwback to my parents' generation). 

But this therapist is not of my parent's generation, and I continue to be annoyed and irritated and insulted by the comment.  "Devoid of jewelry".  Was there supposed to be some genuine insight there?  A diagnosis?   It trivializes a woman; it trivializes a patient.  (And does the therapist note when a man is over- or under-   adorned with jewelry?  Do we make accomodations in the amount of 'acceptable' jewelry a man wears - do we allow more for men from New Jersey?)

I was devoid of jewelry today.  I went out and made several stops; so alas and alack - I was seen in public being devoid of jewelry.  And no lipstick either.   Horrors.

And why was I devoid of jewelry?  Was I having a breakdown?  Was I depressed?  Withdrawing from civilized society?  Sinking into despair?  Lashing out or acting out against some unknown therapist somewhere?  Succumbing to darkness of mental illness?

No.  No to the unknown shallow therapist out there.  No.  I was devoid of jewelry because I had dropped one earring somewhere along the way today.  Instead of walking around with only the other earring, I made the deep decision to yank out the survivor.  Oh - and the 'spare pair' that many of us keep in the car (like a spare tire) had already been used.  Whoopsie.  Perhaps in "smug, trite therapist school" there is a separate category for being devoid of jewelry and devoid of the spare pair).

So there I was.  Devoid.  

Here is what I would like to say to the therapist.  Go to hell.  Wear as much or as little jewelry as you would like, but begone with your shallow self. 

Back to the business of life.