Competent Woman, Your Time Has Come
Originally published at KarenVernon.net on January 31, 2021
When my now-husband and I were in the early days of our Act Two, middle-aged romance, he mentioned that he’d told his long-time best friend about me.
“Oh?” I said eagerly. “What’d you say?” Not one to be described as “beautiful” or “hot,” I was expecting his answer to be more along the lines of “funny,” “kind,” or even “smart” or “talented.”
“I told him you’re the most competent person I’ve ever met,” he said proudly.
Oh. Competent. Maybe this budding relationship wasn’t what I thought it was. (Note from future me: Calm down. It was.)
“Wow,” I responded. “I’ll bet that impressed him. Just what every guy dreams of – ‘Competent Woman.’”
Truly distraught at my less than enthusiastic reaction, he was quick to explain why this was, in fact, the highest of compliments. Uh huh.
And so, “Competent Woman” became part of our vernacular. When I regaled a group of co-workers with this story afterwards, we decided competence is my superpower. One even suggested a secret gesture – a hand shaped like the letter C, held at chest level and accompanied by a chk-chk sound effect. For years, when I’d see her in the hallway, that became our standard greeting.
I was thinking about Competent Woman recently, when hubby (let’s call him MacGyver, or Mac for short) and I were discussing a mutual friend of about our age who still shows up to Zoom calls in full hair and makeup and trendy clothes from top to bottom, including designer boots. “It’s a kit,” he said. “She won’t go out or stay in without it.”
“Hmm,” I mused. “How would I describe Competent Woman’s kit?” I went on to detail a few items from my current, imminently practical collection:
Elastic wear all day – check.
The natural glow of no makeup – check.
Hair, being gently nudged to its natural, graying state with the help of (thank goodness) a talented stylist – check.
A scrunchie for that same hair, longer than it’s been since high school, that I can now pull into a stylish ponytail – check. Though “stylish” is a stretch; to be honest, it’s got a way to go before it stops looking like a founding father’s powdered wig after a particularly raucous day in the Continental Congress.
And again with the hair; for days that I don’t have “on camera” or in person appearances at work, it’s either left to dry in its wild woman naturally wavy state, or more often than not, sprayed down with a little dry shampoo to get just one more day between washings.
“Don’t forget the stabilizer shoes,” Mac contributed helpfully. Right; thanks for the reminder of the new athletic gear I had to invest in recently after developing some acute knee pain. The earnest young woman in the running store recommended them for my particular gait and other challenges. They’re not orthopedic shoes. They’re not.
“What else?” I asked.
“Maybe some kind of ointment?” Mac offered. No denying, this guy knows how to sweet-talk me.
“Well, if we’re shifting from ‘kit’ to ‘go bag,’ let’s not forget a towel,” I retorted. I have a reputation in our family for never traveling without my own towel – you never know when you’ll need one, and you can’t always count on a clean and sanitized one being provided for you. As the great philosopher Douglas Adams details in this excerpt from his classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “a towel is about the most massively useful thing” there is.
Competent Woman is always prepared; youngest child once decreed me “Princess Just-in-Case” during a make-believe play session. For those who know the Enneagram, Competent Woman is a 6. Her cupboards and closets are just this side of hoarder status, but you’re not going to run out of chicken broth or toilet paper on her watch.
So today, I pause to embrace my status as Competent Woman. I come from a long line of them. I’ll bet you know one, or maybe even are one yourself. I’ll even bet that in some of those who insist on the outward appearance “kit,” the heart of Competent Woman beats just below the surface.
Look carefully and you might even glimpse our secret identity symbol – right underneath that stylish fleece hoodie covered in dog hair.