Mirror, Mirror

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 13 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

The mirror never lies. Or does it?

It was submitted by: http://mybrainonkids.net

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Does the mirror lie? Scientifically speaking, that depends on several factors. The quality of the glass, whether it’s concave, straight, or convex, and the type of lighting can all have an effect on the image you see in the looking glass. But there’s more to what you see than science can explain...at least not that kind of science.... Of course people make it a little more complicated.

Our own self perceptions play a role in what the mirror shows or at least in how we interpret it.

The narcissist, with his grandiose sense of self, may see his physical image far more favorably than anyone else. Donald Trump is a great example. He complained directly to the press about photos that were taken of him straight on with a smile on his face and how those photos weren’t flattering. Now, I will admit several news sources do intentionally post unflattering photos of every politician Trump included, but the photo he chose to complain about is exactly how the man looks. To him, the mirror shows something a bit more positive, and when he sees photos of himself, he balks. He can’t believe that’s the real him. The trouble comes from the “media” like with every other problem he has and not with his own thinking or actions.

It’s the complete opposite for me, and it’s something that requires a lot of hard work to overcome. And to be honest, I am nowhere near overcoming it fully. Body dysmorphia and self image issues play a large role in how I see myself. I do have good days and feel cute as fuck, but a lot of the time when I look in the mirror I see someone who is a hundred pounds heavier with a face too big for her features, ridiculous hair, and zero makeup skills. There’s a disconnect some days between reality and what my own self-image causes me to see. And that’s not to say that I’m not a chubby girl or that I don’t have bad hair days or bad makeup days, but it’s not the same as that. Some days it’s absolute despair to look into a mirror and see what I see which is nothing like what other people see…or so they say. I don’t really trust compliments either for fuck’s sake. It’s a tough road.

Somewhere in the back of my head even on bad days I know it’s what I’m seeing not necessarily what’s there, but it’s a powerful thing, that distorted image in the mirror in front of me. I fight it some days hoping to come out on top and others it’s just too much and I sink back into old habits of crying and avoiding and hiding out in the house instead of going to do the things I need to do.

But is that the mirror or me?

The mirror being an object based on a bit of science should be absolutely objective in the image it projects back to you, but life isn’t ever really so simple. Humans are so adept at fucking up objectivity. I mean, let’s be honest we’re adept at fucking up just about everything we touch, but that would take us down a rabbit hole none of us have the time to really explore. The mirror does lie to some of us, but that’s because we lie to ourselves. What we see is something we’ve created in our own minds shaped by experience, loss, trauma, abuse, resonating voices from the past, love, hope, the fight in us, and sometimes mental illness. It’s more complex that the pathway of light and color playing on our eyes from a straight cut of reflective glass that science would have us believe.

Maybe one day I’ll see exactly what’s there without all the baggage I’ve accumulated over the years, but as long as I have more good days than bad, I’ll take it.

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Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Baking In A Tornado http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2016/12/secret-subject-swap-looking-back-while.html

Not That Sarah Michelle http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com

The Bergham Chronicles http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

Spatulas on Parade http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog.html

The Lieber Family Blog http://www.thelieberfamily.com/2016/12/my-best-memory-of-2016.html

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy http://dinoheromommy.com/?p=12126&preview=true

Never Ever Give Up Hope http://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Simply Shannon http://mybrainonkids.net

A Little Piece of Peace http://little-piece-of-peace.blogspot.com/2016/12/december-secret-subject-swap.html
Confessions of a part time working mom http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2016/12/december-secret-subject-swap-three.html

The Angrivated Mom Blog http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com/

Dirty Little Secret

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: Instead, Weight, Caught, Perspective and were submitted by the oh so awesome Jenn at http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/

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Instead of taking a right turn towards home when she left the bleached and in-need-of-a-paint job parking lot in her office building, she went straight then took a sharp left. A right would have taken her to her life. This way would let her escape domestication for a little while.

At work in that rundown office building adjoined by that disaster of a parking lot, she was a telemarketer selling products to people who couldn’t afford them from a cubicle that looked like millions of other cubicles staggered across the country like cardboard cutout prison cells. Every single day she was roused from dreaming by the shrill scream of the alarm clock. Every day she hit the snooze button until she was almost late to work. Every day she skipped dressing up, she skipped makeup, she skipped doing anything to her hair but pulling it back in a half assed pony tail. She didn’t know when she stopped caring, but she had. She used to wake up ready for the world to light her on fire. Now, she was mostly a fizzling match waiting to be tossed by the wayside. She sat in her cubicle dialing numbers, hating people, hating herself in a whirlwind of monotony that killed her little by little every day. Then she would leave her boring, shitty job, travel the 14.58 miles to her house by the same route (every single day), and warm up the same rotation of Hungry Man meals for her far-too-round husband who couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge her existence.

Once upon a time they were happy. They wed, they loved, they dreamed of a bigger life together. Maybe it was never meant to be. Maybe life happened. Either way, the dreams had shriveled and the love went right along with it. She hadn’t felt wanted in longer than she cared to remember. If she didn’t feed the man and wash his clothes, she’s pretty sure her existence in her life wouldn’t have mattered at all. Over the years, she lost any sense of self she had ever had.

Until she met him.

That day at work had started like hundreds before it. She sat at her desk wishing she were anywhere else, wishing she were someone else, wishing she could stick to a diet, that she could be bothered to do something with herself just to feel some semblance of confidence and hating herself for not bothering. She pulled numbers from her computer files contacting people who either hung up on her immediately or who called her any number of words that made her blush and want to waste away and die just for doing her job. This time she was selling some kind of shitty wireless mp3 headphones from china that probably cost a buck a piece and were being pushed for $49.99. Of course people were hanging up for that. Who needed a fucking mp3 player with everyone having ipods and iphones and other bullshit?

When she got Ken on the phone though, he was immediately different. She started in on her spiel speaking so fast hoping to catch the consumer’s attention before the phone was slammed down in her ear. He was laughing in her ear before her second sentence though. She was blushing and bracing herself for the worst when he said, “Slow down, Sugar. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

She apologized then, but he laughed that off, too, and asked for her name. She introduced herself and felt herself smile when he said he liked the sound of her voice. He asked her age. The two of them were only a few months apart actually with her being the oldest. She felt oddly euphoric when he said he wanted to know everything about her, but she told him that she couldn’t talk about that sort of thing on the phone for work, so he wanted to know when she got her lunchbreak and if he could call her then. It was odd, but she gave him her number unable to say no to the kindness she heard in his voice, unable, really, to say no to the butterflies she felt fluttering in her gut. What harm could it do? she thought. It was just her phone number. It’s not like she was meeting a stranger at his home only to end up on the 6 o’clock news when her body was found shoved into a couple suitcases, in pieces, and tossed in the dump.

Eventually, though, she did meet him at his house. It wasn’t until several phone calls, hundreds of texts and shared photos, and a couple of lunch dates later, though. He knew she was married. Unhappily married. He was divorced and after just a few dates said he was failing for her. It was passionate, a chaotic swirl of lust and caring and maybe love—things she hadn’t felt in a long time if ever--and it hooked her right from the start.

She hadn’t slept with him yet, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t thought about it time and time and time again. She wanted it. Needed it. The most that had happened even when she was at his apartment were short kisses that she quickly broke off out of guilt. That hadn’t stopped her from seeing him, though. It hadn’t stopped her from being at his house alone. She knew that no matter how little physical contact the two of them had, it was still an affair, but from her perspective, if things hadn’t been so shitty in her marriage in the first place none of this would have happened. It was just a matter of figuring out where to go from here…if she were honest with herself, though, she could have taken the steps to make this right by now. She had promised Ken that she would, that she was going to leave, that she was going to have *that* conversation at home, and she had had every opportunity to do so, but when it came time to do it, she paused. Every time. She was holding back.

The weight of her secret and the thought of getting caught were exciting in a way. This was the craziest thing she had ever done in her life besides that one time she went into a sex shop and bought a vibrator to keep herself sane. She was scared that taking away the secretiveness, the thrill of it, would take away the very thing that made her feel alive. She was like a junkie begging for another hit so she could feel something more than numb, so she could escape from the consequences of her reality. Then she would trudge home to her apartment that smelled of regret and microwaved Salisbury steak (hard to distinguish between the two) and smile a knowing smile even as she threw Hank’s yellowed briefs into the wash. She would hum to herself when she stood under the hot spray of the shower letting Caress Tahitian Renewal wash away her sins. When she laughed to herself at some inside joke she shared with Ken even while Hank was in the room, she felt free.

In deception she had found salvation. It wasn’t Ken that saved her though he was certainly the catalyst. She had saved herself, proven that she could still take chances and make her own decisions and break the psychological chains that had held her in such an unhappy place for so long.

A phone call may have started it, but in the end, she was the one who determined life was meant for more.

Maybe it wasn’t right. Maybe a lot of people would judge her, but it had been a long time since she felt this good and she planned to hold on to that feeling just a little longer before she decided where to go from here. The only direction she would be going soon enough was up.

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I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the character in this story, but I go where the voice takes me and this was the road she and I traveled together this past week writing this story. Now, I hope you will check out the other bloggers who joined up for today's challenge. You can find the links below. And thank you for reading. 

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://themomisodes.com The Momisodes

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/ Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://eileensperpetuallybusy.blogspot.com Eileen’s Perpetually Busy

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com Battered Hope

http://www.southernbellecharm.com Southern Belle Charm

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://singlemumplusone.blogspot.com Searching for Sanity

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com Climaxed

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

Say Cheese!

I take a lot of self portraits or #selfies if that’s your preferred nomenclature.

It’s not a daily thing, and I surely don’t post dozens at a time, but when I look in the mirror and feel that moment of beautiful, I snap a photo. Sometimes I sit for a moment and stare at the image in the tiny rectangle screen of my phone wondering if that’s really me before I hit the little trashcan icon deleting it as quickly as it was snapped. Sometimes I post them before I can second guess myself and play it off like I have all the confidence in the world.

For that, I have assuredly been called vain right on my own photographs which is alright because I know that’s not my reality. In reality, I have battled a host of self image issues and still do, though these days I’m on the winning side of that battle more often than not. In reality, it took me until I was in my late 20s to ever really post a full body picture anywhere and only recently that I’ve been able to do so with any sort of regularity, without getting sick at the thought or turning ten shades of red.

It’s a funny thing, the relationship between social media and selfies. You see someone posting various images of themselves quite often and begin to wonder just why they’re so full of themselves or maybe there’s the assumption that they just want a good, unhealthy dose of attention. For some reason, it seems the automatic response is to disregard the person as shallow. But when is the world ever really so black and white? When are behaviors so easily explained?

I suppose there are certainly people who are so vain that self portraits are a momentary bragging right, but when I scroll through my feed and see a gorgeous face looking back at me on my Facebook newsfeed, I tend to hit that like button instantaneously because I get it… I get that desire to feel some control over how other people see you because you’ve been full of self-doubt for longer than you can remember and hate 90% of photos other people take of you. I know that it’s exhilarating to feel that moment of acceptance when you post that picture and how much it goes towards building you up that you can even hit “share” instead of deleting every single image you take. In that moment, you see yourself as a whole instead of seeing a kaleidoscope of every flaw no matter how tiny…really see yourself and like what you see, smile at your own image. It’s freeing, that smile. It’s such a change to feel the oft crippling weight of self-doubt lifted even for a moment. The more it happens, the more often that smile lifts you up.

See, it really isn’t about the number of “likes” you get on the photo, it’s about how you see yourself. Maybe the comments people make add to the overall positivity you feel, but ultimately, it’s about your own thoughts and feelings about an image of you in a captured moment that translates to how you can see yourself overall. It’s about you doing you and being perfectly okay with who you are both on the outside and the inside.

Post those selfies, people. There’s not a fucking thing wrong with you loving all of you wherever you are on your journey.

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Sunday Confessions, y'all. I love them. I hope you do too. Please check out the rest of today's contributions on the More Than Cheese and Beer blog and ask about participating. Every Sunday is a new challenge. It's amazing. 

So, Maybe I Do Care 'Bout My Bad Reputation

I’ve seen the phrase “what other people think of you is none of your business” quite often.

As an upwardly mobile woman with a unique sense of style and a long-standing rebellious streak, I wholeheartedly agreed with it for a good long while. In essence, it was a variation of my rebellious tendency to shout that I didn’t give a fuck about what anyone thinks of me. A classier version, albeit, but something pretty similar all the same. Who would really argue with that? That part of it, the face value aspect, still rings fairly true, doesn’t it? A person should unapologetically be who they are without asking for others’ approval to be, to own their space in the world, to live without guilt.

But with self-awareness comes a need to look at that statement on a deeper level, to turn it over and examine all the cracks and crevices in the full light of day to see it for what it really is and not just the pretty package you get when it’s sitting in the shadowed corners of dusk. A lot of things sound good, look good, and get quoted when they’re left in the dark. For instance, I look pretty decent without makeup in the middle of the night, but put some fluorescents on me and whoa… run for cover, man, and wait until I put on my face. Words are like that. Words are like that more than we fully realize with so many of us sharing silly inspirational memes after a second’s thought that aren’t so applicable to anything remotely rational or inspirational or good once examined a little harder. There’s this one Marilyn Monroe quote that comes to mind that I’ve seen more than a time or two. It says, “A wise girl kisses but doesn’t love, listens but doesn’t believe, and leaves before she is left.” If you don’t think about it much, surely that seems like badassery. But on further inspection, all it says to me is that she probably had borderline personality disorder because for fuck’s sake that’s exactly what people with said disorder do and say. Is that really meme-worthy? Hardly.

When you dig a little deeper concerning that sentiment that another person’s opinion of you isn’t your business, it doesn’t have as much value. At least, it doesn’t to me. It doesn’t have to be about you not being allowed to be your true self. But, when you’re on that path to self-awareness, a difficult and time-consumingly emotional process, isn’t it important that the person you are inside match what people perceive you to be? Isn’t it worth understanding whether the image, the you that you project to the world—to your contacts, your associates, acquaintances, friends, loved ones—is the same as the you that you are striving to be, the you that you want to be?

I watched SLC Punk as a teen. It was one of those films that left its mark on me. I wasn’t in the punk scene in the 80s by far, but I related to those characters being a rebellious teen in a conservative area

that was unaccepting of anything perceived as even remotely different and like Stevo and Bob, it made me rebel even harder. Stevo said some things in that film that I couldn’t relate to at the time being so entrenched in my own acts of defiance, but the more I’ve grown as a person, the more self-awareness I’ve gained, the more they’ve come back to me almost like the sucker punch Stevo got with Bob that changed everything for him. He said, “And so there I was. I was gonna go to Harvard. It was obvious. I was gonna be a lawyer and play in the God-damned system, and that was that. I was my old man. He knew, so what else could I do? I mean, there's no future in anarchy; I mean let's face it. But when I was into it, there was never a thought of the future. I mean we were certain the world was gonna end, but when it didn't, I had to do something, so fuck it. I could always be a litigator in New York and piss the shit out of the judges. I mean that was me: a trouble maker of the future. The guy that was one of those guys that my parents so arrogantly saved the world for, so we could fuck it up. We can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it. That was the final irony, I think. That, and well, this. And "fuck you" for all of you who were thinking it: I guess when all was said and done, I was nothing more than a God-damned, trendy-ass poser.”

He grew to that point that he understood change isn’t made on the fringes. I’ve seen that myself for a long time now. He also saw the changes he made wouldn’t exactly be approved of by his younger self or by young punks and old ones alike, but he was okay with that. The fact that someone else didn’t approve of his choices wouldn’t change those choices In the process of self-awareness, though, that look into another person’s perceptions is needed to grow, to really become okay with what you’ve made of yourself or to realize what else needs to change.

It doesn’t really matter one way or another if a person likes the way I wear my hair or thinks I have too many tattoos unless that person is hiring me for a job, but it does matter the overall image I project. That is my business. The person I feel like on the inside should match the person I show the world otherwise I have a whole lot of work left to do. To assume that the outward projection isn’t my business is to fail at awareness altogether in favor of something easier and lazier. It lets me escape half the journey, and what’s the fun in that?

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Skipping the fiction this week for Sunday Confessions in favor of something that's been more or less on my mind for awhile now. Thanks for reading and be sure to check out the other posts today on More Than Cheese and Beer!

A Captive of My Own Memories

Fatty.

Fatass.

Lardass.

Crisco.

Fatty, fatty two by four can’t get through the bathroom door…

Don’t you think you need to go on a diet?

You need to eat some more. Have some more dumplings.

Fat, stupid

Fat, lazy

Fatfatfatfat

It all seemed to run together eventually—the hateful, hurtful comments about my younger body. I was maybe 8 years old when they started. I was a normal-sized child going through hormonal changes that made my belly rounder just like any other girl my age. A girl who needed love and affirmation just like any other as well but who didn’t get it. Instead, the name-calling, the commentary, the diet comments, the hurt were an everyday occurrence that caused self-doubt and self-hatred so strong I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror for any length of time.

That became my identity—a lazy, stupid fatass—even though it was quite far from the truth now that I know better. At the time, it couldn’t be helped. At the time, I only knew how other people saw me and the people around me who were supposed to care about me most, who were supposed to love me unconditionally thought that I was a lazy stupid fatass. So that’s who I was.

In many ways, that’s who I still am.

That self-image kept me captive throughout my teens and early adulthood and still comes back to haunt me on bad days, in weak moments, when I feel especially vulnerable. No matter how hard I work on self-love, I will always be that little girl with tears spilling down her cheeks over the word-daggers thrown her way time and time again, bound to those early experiences, a prisoner of that pain no matter how hard I push forward. I’ve worked hard to develop an identity that is the sum of who I am and not based on those hurtful names. I have a healthy (healthier) self-image these days and have worked on accepting myself as I am and understanding that I don’t have to fit in a size 2 jeans to be “normal.”

but still

When I look in the mirror, it happens like a movie montage of the past circulating hurtful comments around my brain pushing a flood of auditory memories into my train of thought toppling over everything rational and positive in the way, and I turn away. When I get a compliment, I doubt its sincerity. I hide. I withdraw. I stay home. I look down and avoid eye contact. I put on my best resting bitch face and rejoice in never having to talk to people.

And I regret.

I’m tired of regretting, of being captive to the memories of people whose opinions stopped mattering to me years ago. I promise myself over and over again that it’s going to end, and I’ll see myself clearly instead of through this painful, carnival-mirror lens. But the promises are always broken.

One day. Maybe one day I’ll be completely free.

Check out the rest of the confessions today over at More than Cheese and Beer. This has been part of the host prompt she does every Sunday inviting other bloggers to join up based on that day's topic. Check out her Facebook page every Wednesday for the prompts and link up with us (via her page) on Sundays. 

And as always...thanks for reading my deepest thoughts without judgment.