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Last Updated: Apr 23rd, 2006 - 18:54:03 |
When the Evil Queen in Snow White looked at her reflection saying, "Mirror, Mirror, on the wall. Who's the fairest of them all?" she was looking for reassurance that she was still top of the food chain. She didn't want to hear that the fairest was some young up-start destined to replace her.
No wonder she was out peddling poison apples to the chick in 80s spandex.
But the mirror - that ever important mirror - doesn't lie. It doesn't tell you what you want to hear. The mirror only reflects the truth - whether you want to believe it or not.
When you look in the mirror and you see your face staring back, what does the reflection say? If you're only hearing that you're the fairest, then it's time for a new mirror. We all have faults and flaws that only our mirror sees.
When I look at the face in the mirror, I see a face framed in rapidly graying hair and eyes with lines where none use to be none. The face is round and puffy from age, stress, and life. That's just the way it goes. Anyway, no one stays young forever, no matter how many plastic surgeons you hire. Even Dorian Grey eventually got his. We all get old. It's inevitable. Why fight it.
More important yet, if when you look at your face in the mirror, all you see is the outside, then you need to look harder and closer. The face in the mirror will also tell you the story of who you are.
 In the mirror I see my mother staring back at me. I see generations long gone - my grandfather, my great grandmother and my great-great-grandmother. If, as in my case, you look just like your great grandmother, and your great grandmother happened to look like the off-spring of Shrek and Fiona - tough. For better or worse, she's in the mirror. They're all in the mirror - standing right beside you.
The face in the mirror speaks of choices made. Decisions that added a line of sadness or a line of laughter. And every gray hair has a name and a place. That group is called Tom - the ex-boyfriend "who said". This batch is named marriage - for it's cursings and blessings. And over there, those strands are called death - for family and friends who have gone before me.
I feel a tug at my own mortality.
Looking farther still I see carefree days of youth, hesitant and adventurous days of young adulthood and ponderous days of age. I see the hard times and the good times. And I wonder of the days to come. I wonder who the person is I am yet to be. I know that the face in the mirror isn't the final incarnation. There's more to come - whether on the Scottish highlands, the Champs Elysées or in my own backyard - there is still more to come.
© Copyright 2004 by SammonSays.com
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