Mirrors

When my cousin comes to visit me he always tells me how much he loves my full length mirror. He says it makes him look really skinny. Mirrors are just illusions. We've all been to a circus or amusement park that had the special mirrors that made you skinny, fat, wavy, or a look that could only be "Picasso."

And we carry these illusions forward into our everyday life. How often do we allow people to see us for what we really are? Flawed. Damaged. Vulnerable.

Instead we want a Superman persona. Nothing can touch us. We want to be independent individuals. Always smiling. Always smelling pretty. We want to stay on the right side of a phone booth. Even if Clark Kent was a pretty cool guy! Sweet, bumbly cherub face. No one wants to be vulnerable.

One of my low points this semester was sitting and crying through two of my classes. My grandpa sent me a not so nice email that morning and I foolishly read it. I knew both my profs could see me tearing up. Neither said anything. My Government Prof is really great, and he just looked at me with a little bit of pity as I pulled the tears back. My second class was Art History II and the lights are always off, but I know he saw me crying and texting the whole way through class. I told my friend it'd be fine, because he was an artist and understood human emotion. It didn't seem to bother him I was texting. But being honest. Crying in class or really in front of most people - isn't something I do. Image has always been important to me. Too important. I can admit that. It's part of the reason I stayed with my ex-husband so long. Why only my Mother-in-law knew about the physical abuse. I was ashamed. I wanted the perfect marriage. I didn't want people to know we struggled.

I didn't want mirrors reflecting my constant sense of innocent's loss everywhere. I look at pictures from those days and see only hollowness in those blue eyes. Even ones where I'm smiling.

After I left and started to get physically healthy again people started telling me I had beautiful eyes. It was so strange, I hadn't noticed (because I've always been given that compliment my whole life) during the married years no one had said that to me. Because they were hollow, dead, and only sad. And not the pretty sad you see in photographs.

Mirrors lie all the time. People lie more. All we can do is get past the shattered mirrors. And become the illusion we cling to. So we can stop pretending and be real! :)