When I first discovered Betty, I felt like a firecracker on a 4th of July. Finally, I had found someone in the TV world I could perhaps relate to. I always fantasized myself as a Sydney Bristow (from the JJ Abrams’ show, Alias) because she seriously kicked ass, called Victor Garber ‘Dad’ and …, was humping super hot Michael Vaughn. For the latter reason alone, I would not mind dying and being reborn as Sydney Bristow; Sydney Bristow’s nipple even.
But Betty Suarez was me. Daughter of an immigrant family with unruly eyebrows and confusing fashion style. She was someone whom the viewers were rooting for and hoped she would end up with the financially comfortable, boyishly pretty and slightly rebellious Daniel. Young DH was a little like that before he married me. We then had 3 kids and one income for the whole family. He is now broke, circumstantially submissive to corporate America and with a beer belly. He is still kind of pretty 🙂
I am Betty Suarez down to my food diet. My last work meeting was a 2 pm meeting. The two model like women I met ordered a side kale salad for their lunches. A SIDE kale salad…Meanwhile I ate before the meeting thinking I would save some money and time and avoid having to swallow noodles or something tricky like that while I speak. I have done this once in a lunch job interview and it was ghastly. Anyway, guess what I had? I ate a fucking BBQ beef rib reeking of fatty juice with a lentils salad, dill rice…and a Madeleine. How more Betty Suarez can I be?
Betty was better though because she dared the tin can smile…I have been talking about wearing some braces for almost a decade to sort out my crooked teeth but I still cannot do it. Yes, the force was strong in Betty.
Age 37, I am feeling even closer to her. That is so retarded. I feel like an intern in my return to the work world despite 15 years working experience. Hell, this 20 year old blogger from Lost Gen Y girl seems to have it more together than I do. I am not on coffee duties but everything seems brand new to me. I also wonder whether I am going next. I am constantly asking myself: ‘can I really do this? Am I not dangerously winging it?’ Another very telling fact is that…I sweat a lot. Buckets load.
The difference is that now I am too fucking old to censor myself and actually say all the shit that I am thinking. I dress exactly the way I want without caring about how this may get interpreted. I also cut people in the middle of sentences to dash off home because my nanny’s shift was over. I am basically like an intern with a cocaine addiction problem.
But when your (still sole) client suddenly opens his eyes real wide during a meeting and excitedly says after listening to your demented rambling:
‘I think you have just nailed it! That thing you just said is a BIG, BIG idea’. When that happens, you feel what you would probably feel if you were removing hideous metal braces torturing your teeth. Suddenly I realize that teeth braces are the perfect analogy for my current anxieties. Being jobless burdens you, inhibits you, makes you feel ashamed and ugly. People see you differently, they try not to talk about it but it’s, sometimes, the only thing they see and they wonder when you’ll find a job again. Eventually, the braces always come off. Eventually, I hope I will smile again, this time though, a smile with straight teeth.
But before that, I actually need to put these braces on. For real.
NB: I looked online at what happened to Betty at the end of the series (I stopped watching after season 2). Apparently she left New York for a great career in London, looks fabulous; Daniel kind of followed her there and asked her for a date. Way to go, Betty.
NB2: completely not related to my post but needed to get this one out of my chest….I realized that we had 45 unmatched kid socks in our house…45!!!! How can I think I am better at laundry than our local ‘wash and fold’ launderette ? #delusionalhomemaker
redlipstickmama 
Forty-five unmatched socks! I’m glad we live somewhere hot enough to go without socks much of the time. For the rest, I like to buy bulk lots of identical socks to cut down on the need for matching. We still have a lot of sock puppets, though.
But that wasn’t the main point, of course. I think it’s easy to feel like you’ve got it together at 20. There are fewer bits to keep track of, for a start (it’s like your sock drawer is full of a lot of identical pairs). A decade or two later I see a lot of people desperately spring-cleaning so they can find themselves again under the clutter. Once that process is finished, what’s left should be more valuable and/or useful than what you started out with.
Had to buy new pairs and they are all the same now 🙂
I agree with you about age and how everything is more nuanced .