Raised by Mirrors

The Omnipresent Judge

This is a letter to myself and to all the readers who battle the mirror. 

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An anguished gush of air left my lips bouncing off my reflection in the mirror in front of me.

I hate my body, I thought to myself as I grew hauntingly aware of the amount of space my body was taking up as if a phantom marker was drawing my figure into empty air. Too much space. I paced to the second mirror in the bathroom to see if the first mirror was right. My marker self was smaller in this mirror. A third opinion would surely settle this debate. Carrying the weight of shame and sorrow I stumbled down the stairs to let the third mirror decide my fate. 

Tracing the curvature of my thighs to my shoulders, adjusting the position of my hips and spine to contort my body into an ideal shape, until eyes met eyes. A critic of my own art. Shame and sorrow welled into swells big enough to swallow ships and streamed down my cheeks. A single, silent tear splattered on the ground next to my feet. 

I do this every day. 

Ask the mirrors of the house to value my worth. 

Every day, I am let down by what they have to say. 

The mirror, mirror on the wall, tells me I am worthy of nothing at all. 

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I was raised by mirrors. 

From the age of three, I stood in front of a wall of glass in tiny pink tights and tiny pink ballet slippers. The mirror told me to stand up straight and fix my hair. She corrected my plies and snapped at me to tuck my tummy. When my dance teacher said “good job” she bit back, “do better”. She dropped spotlights on the girls to my right and left. “They’re better than you”, she told me. Before I was old enough to know what a beauty standard was, mine was defined by long slender legs that made beautiful pink lines and petite torsos that felt delicate, almost breakable, in embrace.

When I stepped away from the ballet mirrors at age 17, I replaced them with chalky, condensed mirrors in sweat-wicked CrossFit gyms. Between reps, the mirror pointed out my less-than-defined figure. Women sculpted by years of slamming barbells were striking. I had never seen women with mountain ranges on their backs and hillsides rolling down their arms. 

When bad form and a heavy barbell ended my CrossFit career, I picked up running. I hated running at the time, but all the CrossFit energy had me eating my fear for breakfast so I did the logical thing and signed up for my first marathon. Lean-mean-fighting-machine legs pounded pavement next to me. The mirror made sure to remind me, cruelly, that I didn’t have those either. 

Even when there was no mirror to check, I hang the glass frame in my mind. She is a toxic friend. One that never has anything good to say, one that feeds on your insecurities, but one that is always there. So I keep her around because her presence reaffirms in me what I believe true about myself: that my potential to be loved is contingent on my shape.

I avoid its existence.

The glass that 

eats space 

in the corner.

Haughtily devouring substance 

spitting back 

a paper origami body 

Folded. Empty.

Unfolded. Empty. 

Glass

harmless 

Twisted by my mind into 

a relentless beast 

that savors conquest just long enough 

to catch my glance 

again 

      again

           again

The mirror beams triumphantly showing me what I am. What I neglect to notice when I battle my reflection is that the mirror doesn’t show me who I am. But I let her raise me, and parting ways with her omnipresence feels like being told to find my way home after being dropped in the middle of a perilous sea with no map and no life jacket. 

Sometimes my reflection will ripple in the distorted glass and I will see the reminisce of fire in my eyes. Fire that burns to tell me who I am. In fleeting moments I feel pride for the body that has changed shape so many times to feed my changing desires. 

When I needed my body to leap through air and pirouette on point shoes, she did. When I asked my body to throw barbells over my head and out-pull-up the slick-with-sweat-top-heavy men, she did. When I asked my body to run marathons and trail races, she did. When I asked my body to solo backpack 70 miles in three days instead of five to beat unexpected storms, she did. As I’ve been beating my body up climbing granite and sandstone rock, asking her to grow stronger and more resilient, she patiently has. 

I am so tired of being so judgmental of the body that allows me to do so much. 

When I look at myself in the mirror, I wish to not minimize myself to a wrapper of skin. A paper origami body. Flesh. When I look at myself in the mirror, I wish to see fire. Fire with the power to destroy that chooses instead to warm cold spaces, cold hands, cold hearts. I wish to see myself for the depth of my heart, the vastness of my curiosity, the strength of my arms and legs, the capacity of my mind, and the goodness that stitches together the thread of my being. 

There is no beauty standard, there is just beauty. It lives within all of us.

The mirror may have raised me, but it is time to part ways with her judgment. I am enraged for hating the body I have been miraculously gifted. I am furious for deeming myself unworthy. 

When I wake up tomorrow, none of this will be fixed, but I long for the day I wake up and say, 

I love my body.

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Body image carries the heavy weight of stigma. It is hard to talk about. It is hard to write about. I can’t thank my peers in Write of Passage enough for opening me up to writing difficult topics. Hugs to

Envio by Steven Foster

,

Tangent

, and

Rick Lewis

for their honest feedback and support.