The Local Customs of Belonging

Every place has a different idea of what a woman with her life together looks like.

That sounds ridiculous now, but back then it felt like part of becoming an adult.

The women in the office wore suits with skirts, not trousers. Pantyhose were expected. So were heels. Hair was done. Makeup wasn’t something you put on for a special occasion; it was simply part of looking professional. I don’t remember anyone sitting me down to explain the rules. They didn’t have to. I saw what the women ahead of me were doing, and did the same.

It didn’t feel like a rule.

It just felt like growing up.

There was comfort in knowing what was expected of you. Looking back, I realize I’d been learning those rules long before I ever walked into an office.

Where I grew up in Texas, the women around me got dressed before the day began. They put on makeup to go to the grocery store. They teased their hair before checking the mailbox. Jewelry matched. Lipstick was reapplied. Looking polished wasn’t reserved for weddings or date nights. It was simply what grown women did, and because it was all I’d ever known, I assumed it was what women did everywhere. I didn't know they were local. I thought they were simply how things were done.

I loved makeover magazines when I was younger. I could spend hours flipping through before-and-after photos, fascinated by how a different haircut or lipstick seemed to transform not just a face but an entire person. Somewhere between those magazines, the women in my family, and the quiet observations children make without realizing they’re paying attention, I absorbed the idea that presenting yourself well wasn’t vanity. It was part of being responsible. Competent. Respectable.

By the time I was working at Chevron, getting ready each morning took close to an hour. I’d shower, dry my hair, do my makeup, choose my jewelry, spray on perfume and slip into heels before walking out the door. It rarely felt like effort because it had become so automatic.

I also checked my reflection more often than I ever realized. If I walked past a shop window, I'd glance over. Restaurant bathroom mirrors. Elevator doors. The dark screen of my phone before it lit up. I wasn't admiring myself so much as checking that everything was still where it belonged.

It never occurred to me to ask where that habit came from. It never occurred to me that what I thought of as “put together” wasn’t some universal standard of womanhood.

It was simply the version I’d grown up with.

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The first hint that my version of “normal” wasn’t quite as universal as I’d assumed came years before I retired.

I was on a business trip in California when my coworker Lailani looked at me one morning and asked, “Do you always wear makeup?”

The question caught me completely off guard. Not because the answer was yes, but because I’d never imagined it was unusual enough to ask. I remember laughing before realizing she wasn’t joking. After that, I couldn’t help noticing the women around me. They looked just as professional as the women I worked with in Houston, but they seemed to have arrived there by a different route. Their hair was more natural. Makeup was lighter. Nail polish, if it was there at all, didn’t seem to matter much. They looked completely comfortable in their own skin.

Growing up, my family had an unofficial French exchange student named Stanislas who loved reminding us how American we were. He couldn’t understand why we showered every day. He thought we wore too much makeup. Then, almost in the same breath, he’d tell us Americans didn’t pay enough attention to how we dressed. Apparently we’d managed to get both things wrong.

At the time, I laughed it off.

Years later, when Nigel and I retired early and began slow traveling, I found myself remembering those conversations.

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One of the things I love most about staying somewhere for a month or two is that the sightseeing eventually runs out. Ordinary life takes over. You start recognizing the woman who walks her dog every morning, the grandfather buying vegetables, the parents collecting children after school. That's usually the moment a place stops feeling like a destination and starts feeling like somewhere people actually live.

In Paris, I found myself quietly studying women as they walked along the Seine or lingered over a glass of wine at a café. Their makeup was subtle except for the occasional red lipstick, but their clothes were beautifully put together in a way that seemed almost effortless.

Standing there, I suddenly thought of Stanislas again, and realized he’d been describing a completely different set of cultural assumptions.

When I spent time with Nigel’s family in England, I noticed something different again. Makeup certainly wasn’t absent, but it seemed to belong to weddings, parties and evenings out rather than everyday errands. Every day life looked refreshingly ordinary.

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By the time we reached Bali, I expected things to be different again. What surprised me was how naturally I adapted.

At first it was simply practical. Between the heat, the humidity and long days spent outside, there didn’t seem much point wearing foundation. I kept putting on mascara for a while because I liked the way it made my eyes stand out, but one morning I walked out of our villa without it and immediately found myself doing something I hadn’t expected.

I looked around—not at the temples or the scooters or the beach, but at the women.

I wanted reassurance that I hadn’t misunderstood the assignment.

Were they all wearing makeup and I just hadn’t noticed? Had I accidentally become the scruffy tourist who’d stopped making an effort?

They weren’t. Or at least, not in the way I’d grown up expecting.

That small moment stayed with me because I realized I hadn't been looking for fashion inspiration at all. I had been looking for reassurance. Once I settled into our little beach community in Sanur, I realized no one seemed particularly concerned with the version of polish I'd always associated with being "put together." Our neighbors wandered in and out of each other's compounds. People stopped by after the beach. We'd spend afternoons outside talking by the pool. Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like I was supposed to look camera-ready before leaving the villa.

A few weeks later, my friend Melanie came to visit from Texas. Melanie enjoys makeup in a way I never really have. She loves doing her hair, her nails and putting together a look, and she always looks beautiful. The Balinese women complimented her nails, admired her makeup and fussed over her hair.

No one had judged me for my bare face, and no one judged Melanie for her glamorous one either. They simply appreciated what she enjoyed.

It was another reminder that I wasn't discovering the "right" way to be a woman. I was simply discovering another way.

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For a while, I thought I was simply becoming more comfortable as I got older. I traded heels for shoes I could happily walk five miles in. My wardrobe shrank to clothes that packed well and felt good. I stopped straightening my hair except for the odd special occasion, and somewhere along the way I realized I wasn’t checking my reflection nearly as often as I used to. They accumulated so gradually that I barely noticed them happening.

In retrospect, I don't think I became less concerned with my appearance. I stopped getting ready for an audience that usually wasn't there.

It wasn’t until much later that I understood what had actually changed.

As those observations accumulated, I realized they weren't really about makeup at all. Every place seemed to have its own idea of what a woman with her life together looked like. None of them felt better than another once I stopped comparing them. They were simply different ways of saying, this is what belonging looks like here.

I'd spent decades believing I was following universal rules about being presentable, professional and feminine. Looking back, they weren't universal at all. They were simply the expectations I'd inherited where I grew up, reinforced by the corporate world where I'd built my career. They had become so familiar that I'd stopped seeing them as customs at all.

Travel didn’t convince me to stop wearing makeup, and retirement didn’t suddenly make me care less about how I looked. I still enjoy getting dressed up for dinner with friends. I still like a good lipstick, and I recently bought one of those red-light masks because apparently I’m still holding out hope.

The difference is that those things no longer feel like the price of admission. They’re simply choices.

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The other morning I walked past the full-length mirror in our bedroom without looking into it. A few steps later I caught myself smiling because I realized how routine that had become. Years ago, I would have stopped to check my hair or make sure my lipstick hadn’t faded. Now I often forget the mirror is even there.

Retiring early gave me enough distance to notice the habit. Slow travel gave me enough different versions of “normal” to question where it had come from.

For most of my life, I thought I was learning how to be a woman. I was really learning the local customs of belonging.

Once I understood the difference, I finally got to choose which customs I wanted to carry forward.

💛Kelly

What's one thing you grew up believing was "just how people do it" that you later realized was simply how your people did it?

If this essay made you think about one of the "rules" you've been following without ever questioning where it came from, I'd love it if you shared it. We all inherit ideas about what it means to have our lives together. Sometimes it takes a new place—or a new season of life—to realize they were never universal.