Dear Mirror,

You have your uses and I need you every day. You are there for me when I am preparing for a date or running late to work. You help me find the spinach in my teeth from lunch and let me touch up my lipstick after a long day. You help me slay my selfie game and give me spurts of confidence when my hair is on point. Mirror, you can be my best friend sometimes. However, as much as I need you, sometimes you are my worst enemy.

You remind me that my skin is too pale, my hair too frizzy and my teeth too yellow. You point out my pimples with the intention of making me try to hide them beneath layers of cosmetics and showcase my scars, each with its own story. You make me feel like I am not pretty. You show me my flaws, and direct my attention to the blemishes that mar my body like dark sharpie circling them. I can be having a wonderfully light and airy day and all of a sudden, like a tidal wave, a single glance at you can change my mood.

Mirror, I do not like the power that you have over me. I wish I could make all the bad in you disappear. I do not want to be reminded that my waist is not tiny and that my hair is a poof ball. I want to be able to look deep into you and see the best of me, the parts that other people see before anything else. I want to be able to be happy with who I am, not degraded by the one thing on which I rely so heavily.

I use you every single day, putting countless hours of faith into you, yet I do not understand why you contribute to the diminishing of my self-esteem. While I know that you only show me what I can see, somehow everything becomes your fault. Somehow we develop this way to blaming you, mirror, for the flaws that we see, when it is our minds that really do it. You show us both the good and the bad. Somehow you end up getting all the blame for how our minds bend and warp how we see ourselves.

The decrease in self-esteem and hyper-criticism of how we see ourselves is strictly the product of our own minds. The mirror does not have to be our enemy, so I am sorry. Mirror, you do not deserve all of the outfit changes and insults thrown at you. You do not need to listen as I cry in irritation with myself. You do not need to feel bad. It is all the result of me. If I could change how I my mind warps your vision, I would. I want to be your friend. I want to be able to rely on you to tell me when my cat eye is perfect and when I have used way too much blush. I want to be able to hear the good and the bad, like how orange is NOT my color, but how blue makes my eyes stand out so well. I am sorry that I have taken you on such crazy rides. I am sorry mirror. It is not your fault.

Love,

The girl looking at you