The mirror

I wrote this essay for a Hello Sunshine contest in 2021.

As a little girl, I used to watch my grandma looking at her mirror; she loved to put on lipstick and wear some jewelry while she watched me backwards. I remembered, all I wanted was to look like her: so elegant, so confident, so pretty. But I was too different. She was white, I was tan, she was tall, I was short, she was an actress and I was anything but that.

As a teenager, I used to watch my friends dressing up for a party in the mirror. They were pretty girls, blond girls, thin girls, and all I wanted was to look like them. When was I going to be able to look at myself in the mirror that way? Maybe if I wore heels, maybe if I learned how to put on false eyelashes, maybe if I worked out, maybe if I bought expensive clothes.

Then I became a grown-up and found powerful women, intelligent women who used to look at themselves in the mirror before giving a speech. I wanted to practice like them in the mirror: looking secure, knowing the words, telling my truth. But I wasn’t that determined, I didn’t know all the words, and I hadn’t told anyone the truth.

When I became a mom, I wanted to be the best mom, but I didn’t know what the perfect role model for that was, so I learned from books. I read motherhood books and saw moms at the diaper changer being great moms. They knew how to calm their babies, how to play with them, how to breastfeed, and I wanted that. But how was I going to be that kind of mom? I wasn’t calm, I didn’t play as a child, and my mom didn’t breastfeed me. Great moms have great pictures with their children, but how was I supposed to have a great picture and look at myself if I wasn’t that kind of mom? Of course, I couldn’t.

My body changed, and I wasn’t able to wear the same swimsuit I used to wear in the summers. The reflection in the lake was too painful — to see my love handles and my hips. I didn’t look like the other midlife crisis women. I really was in that crisis, and I could see it in my body — my “personal map,” someone said. I didn’t have those boobs, that butt, those legs.

So, I resigned myself to not see myself in the mirror. I wanted to, but it was impossible. I didn’t have all the stuff necessary to see me as I was.

Then I started to write and figured out that it was never too late to look at myself, even if I didn’t do it in a mirror. Eventually, I opened my heart and saw all the beauty that was inside. With time, I learned to watch my mind and found its drama to be like an “Oscar-winning film.” I laughed and watched myself for the first time. Now I love to watch myself in the mirror.