The Mirror Might Lie…

Event #1: Over the past few days I’ve been reading About Face: Women Write about What They See When They Look In The Mirror edited by Anne Burt and Christina Baker Kline. Fascinating. Disturbing. Close-to-home. Beautiful. I know my own story with the mirror; my own issues, my own memories, my own internal tapes that translate what I see when I look. To read the stories of 25 other women who are diverse in race, ethnicity, culture, and age allowed me to see that my story, though uniquely mine, is not isolating. I am not alone.

Event #2: Yesterday I sat on a two-person swing with 9-year-old Abby. The sun was out, but not yet too hot. It glistened on the lake below – my very favorite scene (sun on the water). Beauty beside and before me. Abby had brought out scrapbooks; pages she wanted me to turn, filled with stories she wanted me to tell. I assumed they were photos of her, given that my mom has already filled two large binders with memories of her life. I was wrong. She had brought me mine – photos of me from birth to 30; photos that I could already see in my mind before I opened the cover; photos I have hated of a girl’s life I have been embarrassed by and have wanted to forget.

Why that last sentence has been my reality would be far more than this post can bear, but it certainly sets the stage for what I expected to see. Which makes what I did see so surprising. Yes, there were a few in there that lived up to my expectations – the awkward ages between about 11 and 15, the acne, the braces, the hair, the clothes. Who doesn’t have those, I suppose. But yesterday I looked at photos that I’ve seen hundreds of times and realized that I was hearing a new tape; that I was having to re-tell myself what I was seeing. This girl wasn’t ugly or fat or shameful. She was a toddler, a pre-teen, a teenager, and frankly, thin! She was growing into her body. She was experimenting with haircuts and makeup and clothes. She was trying herself on…figuring out who she was…rarely knowing…and desperate to be seen…desperate to be seen as beautiful.

Little has changed. I continue to try myself on…figure out who I am…rarely knowing…desperate to be seen…yes, as beautiful. But to have 40+ years of internal images, those that I believed the mirror to be showing me truthfully, shift profoundly in about 15 minutes, is beyond coincidence, I think. To realize that the mirror – or at least what my brain and heart have told me the mirror sees and shows – might lie? Well, that changes a lot.

So, I’m still in the midst of many thoughts. I’m still mulling over the essays of these profoundly gifted and amazing women who have written stories that mirror my own. I’m still mulling over the photos of a young girl who has become a gifted and amazing woman. I’m still mulling over the lies I’ve told myself over the years and wondering why. I’m still mulling over how to even slightly, subtly change those internal messages for Abby and Emma. I’m still mulling over what I saw in the mirror even this morning. I’m still mulling over why the mirror matters so much to women.

When I look in it today, however, it doesn’t lie; or, maybe better stated, I’m not lying to myself. I see me. And unlike what I (told myself I) saw for so many years, I like it. Maybe I’m finally fitting into the me I’ve been trying on. Maybe I’m finally figuring out who I am. Maybe I do know; still in bits and pieces, but not nearly as rarely. And maybe I’m less desperate to be seen…yes, as beautiful, because I’m able to offer that to myself.

What if the mirror lies? If so, I get to choose what I see. So do my daughters. Hardly coincidence. That’s God’s grace – embodied and present. I’m grateful.

So, go look in the mirror and imagine what you might see if the mirror could possibly be lying. Then go buy the book!!!