How often do you see your own reflection?

Many years ago, people might have been able to say “twice a day,” once in the morning before leaving the house, and once at night before going to bed. You might have caught a glimpse of yourself during the day while passing a shop window or something, but for the most part you weren’t bombarded with images of your own face. Since the invention of the front-facing camera on the smartphone and the birth of the art of selfie-taking, we are now bombarded with our own self-portraits a lot more often than we used to be — young adults especially — all day long.

It starts when we wake up. Taking that first look into the mirror in the morning can be a very daunting task. You have to muster enough courage to get up and survey the damage of the previous night, and then make it into something presentable enough for the rest of the world to see during the day.

That’s the trouble with looking into mirrors. There isn’t a whole lot we can do to change what we look like in the morning. There’s facial cleansers and makeup that can enhance a little and make subtle changes, but unless we spend a fortune on a visit to a cosmetic surgeon, we can’t do very much about what our parents so lovingly gave us at birth. And with the media constantly raising standards about how people (especially young women) ought to look, it gets harder and harder to be happy with the face that I see in the mirror. At some point in my morning, I have to decide “okay, this is enough” and head out the door.

But that’s the other issue I have with the media. We are lead to believe that how we look is who we are, and that’s simply not true! You can see your reflection in so many other ways besides peeking at a mirror. One way I can see my reflection is when I write.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m seldom satisfied with my writing either. I’m always going over it, crossing out, backspacing, and making changes. But eventually, after making all my corrections, instead of thinking “okay, this is enough” and heading out the door, I can look at it once more and confidently say “yup, this is me” and feel catharsis.