Today I looked in the mirror…
The person standing across from the tooth brush I tightly gripped might be the same age I am.
I didn’t question. I didn’t find reason to challenge. I half heartedly stood there with my addiction to determination wondering what it would take to remove this thing from the mirror so that my two
aching ankles could locate enough balance to touch success.
Stop! Insert comments from 11th grade Creative Writing teacher Mrs. Eschler who would take her evil as sin squeaky red El Marko Flair pen and scrape across such thought these heavy rehearsed constantly tired almost never understand words: This collection of run on sentences with improper punctuation gives nothing to the reader because the author elected to put ego before acceptance. What are you trying to say? Your view of the world is so far off the ground NASA refuses to call it a UFO believing there are some things people should never talk about.
Break it down…
You want. You need. Requirement is a daily function. I hear it everyday, “There are too many walls in my life to seek what I once dreamed.”
That wall, invisible bricks, bad decisions made on rainy day Monday’s has a face, two eyes and the remnants of a booger in the left nostril and you don’t have the guts to save them from future embarrassment. Why that image in the mirror elects to show up each time you poke your head into a pool of reflection makes it more unconditional with its love than a dog.
Then it occurred to me today…if the frame before you stood to your left or right and bared the name family or friend…it’s an hourly ritual in this country to ask them to slide to the side so you may pass. But that image stands in front of you every time you go into the bathroom, drive the car, walk by a giant window at a mall store! At least a shadow disappears at the stroke of midnight.
If for one second the image would leave its post…where would your dreams breathe?
Call me insane, a whacked out washed up former teen turned adult figure but that wall can be climbed, dug under, moved around or through. In recent weeks I’ve placed my 2nd degree black belt in front of the mirror not to inflate my confidence but to reach through it like a fist shatters a brick but with no invitation to create more destruction.
All things held in the image of a mirror is who you were. The laws of reality don’t allow it to escape into the future. It only reflects what you’ve experienced.
Shaped like my mothers heart each eye placed into the forehead of the reflection watches me more than George Orwell’s Big Brother. What is strong isn’t what’s on the other side it what you hold inside.
Rather than stand in the mirror to see if your bicep is growing if your butt might be too much for society to handle…change you not what the mirror is willing to let you see for free. Mirrors lie, bend the rules, find reason to forgive too quickly and seek no reason to protect you from unexpected changes and all things required to recover.
It’s your choice to educate the mirror.
I half heartedly stood there with my addiction to determination wondering what it would take to remove this thing from the mirror so that my two aching ankles could locate enough balance to touch success.
If you believe so much in what’s being projected from the mirror why haven’t you included its name on a resume? Take the potential employer into the nearest restroom and have them interview that thing looking back at the two of you.
Mine would slowly shake its head from side to side then reply, “Don’t waste your time.”
Because that’s what mirrors do. It’s the place embarrassed weekend wagons that have fallen push you to ask deep questions without ever getting honest answers. A favorite song slips from your car radio speakers and instantly you’re the next American Idol blasting those vocals out like rock stars on ice. The tiny peeps in the seats behind you seek nothing more than to bring rage to your cage and without a doubt the image in the mirror catches you in a state of fear and says, “You were once this way.”
Or does it?
A mirror doesn’t talk back. Like dogs and cats we’re easily convinced a look, stare, reaction, pant or readjusting of the belt or skirt is a map to follow on a journey toward only one destination.
Do you know what’s made it worse? Digital cameras… One click and a quick spin to see what was preserved onto an itty bitty teeny weenie little chip.
A picture of me was taken while sitting at a table in Chicago staring into a handheld mirror. I’m drawn to that picture like M.C. Escher cut into his own image and placed it on paper. You don’t have to believe in ghosts but by God you better give all you’ve got to the thing on the other side of that sheet of glass.
If what it says is truth…why do objects in a mirror seem closer than they appear?
Why has the black belt been set in front of the mirror? To remind it of the path I chose to walk and no matter how much it hurts at 49 to be thrown like trash from a car on I-77 or some back road in South Carolina…the journey didn’t end on the day the heart my mother breathed life into rebooted.
A mirror doesn’t tell you not to achieve success. It’s you who says, “I quit.”
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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