Saturday 30 May 2015

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Twenty, going on twenty one.
It isn't the fanciest age to be, believe me. Sure it sounds all sorted but deep down, we're constantly shuffling between being carefree children and responsible adults and it doesn't feel as fancy anymore.

Here's when we start indulging in raising questions about our self worth, or worse yet, basing it on someone else's judgment. No good hair day is good enough, no skin is perfect enough and no body is skinny enough.
Why did I say skinny? Admit it or not, we all look at that and sigh. Sure we read, promote and even write powerful words about how every size is beautiful, but how much of it is true? And if you were to magically receive that sculpted body with the cheek bones and the collar bones and all other bones, would you still be standing on those supposedly high moral grounds?
I know I wouldn't.

So for a large chunk of my life I would look at my reflection in the mirror and see a rather crude, imperfect and disappointing version of me.
They say to find true love you must first be insanely and irrevocably in love with yourself. I was. Or was I?
I saw but too many flaws in what that mirror had to show me. If my clothes made me look slender, my hair would be acting up. Something was always you know, off.
I'd run into people on the street and greet them half heartedly, deeply wishing I could magically disappear. My acne would suddenly seem too prominent and my jeans felt too tight for no apparent reason.
I'd learned to love myself the way I was: hyper emotional, needy, over bearing, insecure and easily broken. I had come to terms with what I saw within me, but I wasn't yet ready to make peace with what the world saw of me.
My face.
Six pack flabs.
Undone nails.
Feet that looked at pedicure as an ancient ritual, so on and so forth.

Somewhere along battling my own insecurities, I finally unwrapped the bow tied truth of my fragile little ego. I had created my own insecurities.
The reason why I always felt like I wasn't enough was my own self. It was because I gave more importance to the acne invasion on my cheek than the heartfelt smile I'd give to people I bumped into. Would they remember the freckles on my nose or that I ducked past them despite having spotted them?
Was the world really perceiving me as the reflection of my mirror?
Was I wearing make up as an addition or as a necessity?
And was I really basing my self worth on how many pounds my weighing machine pointed at?

That machine runs on a couple of batteries.
The mirror shows you everything that you don't want to see. One blow and it would come crashing down into pieces that can't be put together again.
And I was letting something that fragile define who I am?


Not anymore.
You see, part of growing up has a lot to do with thanking puberty for the splendid spell of magic.
But part of it, and the important part of it is about looking at yourself and finding what you wanted to see in the first place.
No reflections, no deceptions. Your true self. Your core. Your soul.

The next time you catch yourself crinkling your nose to what you see when you look into a piece of glass, remember that it's just that, while you? You're worth more. A hell lot more.

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