The Girl in the Mirror
I don’t remember the first time I noticed her; was it the sixth grade? The eighth? Just yesterday? And somehow, I feel like she’s been there my whole life – never leaving me in peace, always flitting in and out of my mind, at the corner of my eye: vanishing whenever I was happy, yet doing her utmost to bring me down.
And in a way I came to hate her, though at the same time I couldn’t imagine existing without her presence. I looked for her at every opportunity, expected her to torment me, yet there was always the underlying fear and revulsion that you have for something vulgar and ugly and uncouth.
That girl lived in the mirror. And that girl was, and always has been, me.
***
What awful existences some of us have. Yet compared to others, perhaps my tormentor wasn’t the worst. If I close my eyes and build a wall around myself and think far, far back, I can only remember the vaguest feelings of discomfort. If I think that far back, I take myself to a time where I was still friends with the girl in the mirror, where she was sometimes my only companion. That was the time where she could be a comforter instead of a tormentor; a friend instead of my worst enemy. My uneasiness was mere discomfort – the agony had not yet begun.
But then I can forward time from there, and the vague unease and indistinct suspicions become clearer and sharper; my senses become attuned to fine details I wish I’d never noticed. All of a sudden, uncertainties become certainties – good becomes bad, and things I once loved about myself I began to hate. The girl in the mirror showed me things I’d never seen before, and before long, I’m forwarding years, watching a reel of my life as it crumbles under the weight of others’ eyes.
Suddenly I see myself beginning high school: awkward, gangly, insecure child. I think I’m so grown up. I became so aware of bodies – not just my own. Why that acute fascination? I discover parts of myself I never knew I possessed; and always – absolutely always, the criticism. I master the art – I can hate anything so long as it belongs to me, and desire anything as long as it doesn’t.
I hate that girl – the one that lives in the mirror. I hate her, because she taught me to hate me.
***
Why are humans so apt at creating their own hells? Perhaps because we know our own miseries the best – so why inflict them upon ourselves? Happiness, I’ve learned, is a rare gift that not many possess. Obtaining it, I think, is even harder.
I wish I could be happy. Truly, I do. But I can’t imagine living without pain – it’s such a vital part of me: it has shaped me, perhaps harshly, but it has made me what I am. And I cannot live for long without it. Often, I crave the pain, just so I could reassure myself that I can feel. My life has been evolved around pain, wrought by it, based on it. Not based on happiness. For you see, happiness can be so deceptive. Oh, I’m sure we have all felt pleasure – but that deep, intensely real and perpetual happiness isn’t something many get to feel often. Yet pain is always true – it’s raw and real, and you can feel it so sharply. And you can call upon it so easily – like a true friend, it will always be there if you look for it hard enough.
