Girl Of My Dreams.

Byline: Jean Thompson

Whether it's our perfectly groomed colleagues or elegant strangers in the park, the women we admire from afar say something about us.

I saw her again not long ago, while I was waiting for a flight at O'Hare. We were both standing in line for coffee. I was my usual haggard pre-flight self, dressed in athletic shoes, utilitarian black pants, and an oversize linen shirt, already wrinkled. A militant nonchecker of luggage, I was sweating under the bulky weight of my carry-ons. The Girl I Always Wanted to Be wore a summery white blouse and skirt, cinched with a slim gold belt. She carried a ladylike straw clutch which matched her espadrilles. (My own handbag, selected for its storage capacity, looked and felt as if it were stuffed with rocks.) On her wrists were dainty bracelets; around her neck, some sparkly chains. Most telling of all, the Girl I Always Wanted to Be ordered her coffee and strolled off with it in an amused, leisurely fashion, as if travel were an adventure to be enjoyed, as if it were to be expected that you pulled your look together for the occasion, and that fretting over how to pack miniaturized toiletries into TSA-approved containers was for lesser mortals.

Now, one vital characteristic of the Girl I Always Wanted to Be is that she is a stranger, momentarily glimpsed. For all I know, the girl in the airport arrived at her destination bereft of her luggage, stamping her well-shod foot in baggage claim, and calculating how long she could manage without buying new underwear. That's not the point. There's a combination of appearance, attitude, and circumstances that, for a powerful, unwilled moment, makes us want to be someone else. It's different from ordinary envy of, say, catalog models or celebrities. Different also from that mainstay of advertising--the pairing of products with desirable scenarios, i.e., if only I could be that happy, attractive person drinking Coke or driving a Lexus. And when it comes to the accomplishments of accomplished women, I'd like to think that I admire them without any dark complications of motive. But the Girl I Always Wanted to Be involves wistfulness, an awareness of our own insecurities, identity as it can be conveyed by style and, perhaps, a sense of possibilities.

Here's another incarnation of her: a young girl walking along a city street at dusk, skirt a bit too short, coat too light for the October chill. It was the tights I noticed, wool with goofy, exuberant stripes in shades of red and yellow and blue and green and violet. With these she wore short boots with high heels, so that most of what you saw was legs, two moving, fluorescent caterpillars. Her hands were shoved into her pockets, and it gave her a jaunty air, as did her bobbing ponytail. What made me want to be her was not the striped tights themselves--which few of us would be well-advised to wear--but her self-evident pleasure in herself, the invitation to stare at her, and the promise that she would stare just as boldly back. I hoped that she was on her way to meet someone who was fond of her, but even if she wasn't, I was pretty sure she would invent some way to have a fine evening.

A second truth about TGIAWTB is that she changes over time, mutates along with our chronological age and the prevailing culture. Think about the phase, or phases, you went through when you ardently wished to be called by a different name. In second grade I determined that the most perfect, most mellifluous name in the world belonged to my classmate Lana Joy Jacobs, who took tap-dancing lessons. (Hi, Lana Joy! How did life turn out?) Later I wanted to be Cindy or Candy. (Think cheerleader. Think plaid.) Later still, coming of age in the 1960s, maybe Yasmina or Shenandoah. Something exotic that conjured up an impossible counterculture ideal: part Earth Mother, part revolutionary, someone a guy would write a really cool song about. Well, OK, so Shenandoah wouldn't work. Already taken.

In time I came to terms with my own noncommittal monosyllable, to which no nickname has ever adhered. Just as when we get older we tend to make peace with ourselves, inside and out, or else go for the big transformation--the sex-change operation or religious conversion. But the impulse to change, rearrange, or perfect stays with us, fueling entire industries. There's a balance between self-improvement and self-acceptance that we each have to find for ourselves. On one side of the line is, say, trying new eye shadow. On the other, anorexia.