Mirror, Mirror

“The mirror is my best friend, because when I cry it never laughs.”

Charlie Chaplin

I got distracted watching myself in the mirror during my Zumba class last night. So much so that I broke my autopilot and forgot a few steps. But I was thinking, shit you not, I’m so lucky I get to look at myself in the mirror for a full hour at a time … maybe that’s why I love exercise classes so much.

Which is definitely in the redzone of a narcissistic thoughts, though not my worst offender.

It’s probably a little bit true.

I do like looking at myself in the mirror. I can’t even hide behind a veiled lie because this is such a universally known fact about me. It’s a running joke that if there is a reflection to find, I will find it. In the window panes or blank TV screens or glass conference room walls. I seek out my own reflection without thought, the habit so ingrained that my mother told me that if I’m meeting new people take the seat that doesn’t look at the window so I won’t be tempted. It’s better to change my environment rather than just not look at myself all the damn time. It’s that deep.

Ouch.

When I think about it, my attraction to mirrors has been a puzzle. There’s some vanity. There must be. But I think of the decade or so of my life where I’ve loathed myself and how I looked. I wasn’t looking in the mirror because I thought I was hot stuff. In some of the worst moments I’ve looked in the mirror, snot and tear-stained, and hated myself. And kept looking, looking.

Maybe it was vain to look. There is a selfish ring to ripping apart yourself in search of beauty.

In the movie Divergent the main character, Tris, is rarely allowed to look into mirrors in her upbringing. She is supposed to reject vanity. But in her journey, her own reflection helps her forms her identity and grounds her to reality. When I first watched the film I felt known. This, this.

If eyes are the windows to the soul, I need a mirror to see my eyes and to find my soul.

Looking at my reflection feels like someone holding my hand. I’m here. You’re here. It grounds me to myself. I make decisions looking at my own face, into my eyes, and treating myself like an Other I can love.

(The dark side of treating yourself as as an Other is that we can abuse others too, we can berate them and cut them up and make them watch).

When I’m lost, I search for myself.  

I don’t pretend that I’m going to change anymore, though I could stand to be more conscientious. After all, I don’t need to have a metaphysical soul staring contest with my reflection during a team meeting. I won’t apologize for liking reflections, but I will apologize if I’m not being a good listener or a good friend.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall
Who is the fairest of them all?
Mirror, mirror, will you break
If my soul is yours to take?
Mirror, mirror, what do you see
When I am staring back at me?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall
Who am I, after all?

With Love,

Natalie