Those nameless fading colors

You're probably wondering why the fuck haven't I written anything on this blog lately.  That might be because you think my entire life is spent on pondering courtship and gender issues.  I know I give that impression since that's the only subject I write about on AF.

But trust me, I have a zillion other concerns and interests.  These days, house-hunting and starting a small business consumes most of my free time.  As such, the Stylelife Challenge has been placed on the back burner.  Hopefully, I'll return to it tomorrow and write a little something about it. 

For now, I want to tell a story.  It's not really a story, but an observation. 

My brother got married seven years ago.  From the marriage, I acquired in-laws on my brother's wife side of the family.  One of these in-laws is this really beautiful Burmese girl I've admired from afar for years.  She doesn’t know it (never caught me looking).  I don't even know her name.  I see her only twice a year, usually Christmas and Chinese New Years.  She'd normally be hanging out with her side of the family and I'd do the same in mine.

She fits into a rare class of girls whom I consider “elegant”.  Elegant girls aren’t just beautiful, they have an aura of sophistication and intelligence.  Having an elegant look does not mean she's actually smart and sophisticated, only that her appearance, fashion sense and demeanor conveys that impression. 

Well, my nameless in-law fits into this rare category.  At least she once did. 

Because I see her so infrequently, I can detect changes in her appearances from one year to the next.  When I first spotted her at my brother’s wedding seven years ago, my immediate thoughts were, "fuck, I can't stop staring."

But as the years wore on (sigh), I can see her appearance declining fast.  Although this is typical of women pushing into her late 20s, the decline is most acutely detectable on the really pretty ones.  Flowers of all types will eventually wilt away, but you notice most the ones that were once the prettiest and most colorful. 

I'll probably see her next month at our Christmas family gathering.  I’m curiously looking forward to it in macabre kind of way, to see how much more her colors have faded.  I don't think she's married.  She could have landed a handsome wealthy husband if she had played her cards correctly, when her beauty was at its peak.  Like for so many modern women these days, she seemed to have allowed her best courtship years to slip irreversibly by without capitalizing.