“Look in the mirror and what do you see?
All the faces of who I used to be.”
Barbara Heagy
Margaret looked into the bathroom mirror as she did every morning. She ran her fingers through her hair, eased out the tangles. Picking at the corner of her eye, she rubbed away the sleepiness of the night. As she leaned in to the mirror, she flexed her lips to check for stray pieces of food caught in her teeth. Stepping back, she glanced down for a moment and then back up to greet the face in the mirror. She struck her pose, her best look. Turning her face slowly to the right, then the left, she examined the small wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. “That’s okay, they’re my smile lines,” she told herself confidently. The same smile lines curved down from either side of her nose to the edges of her lips. As if to prove it to herself, she smiled once at the reflection. And that’s when she noticed it.
A little spark, a twinkle in her eyes, a flash of mischief, looked back at her. Her silly, get-into-trouble three-year old face was still there, looking for the next amusement that would send her into high-pitched giggles and squeals of delight. She stuck her tongue out at it. No wonder she enjoyed her little grandson so much. He gave her licence to let the little girl out once in a while, to romp and play and be enchanted by the simple pleasures of life once again.
She took one step back away from the mirror and looked past that little girl to another reflection. This time a young girl, an almost woman, stood shyly in front of her. Margaret could see the bloom on her cheek, the tightly closed lips afraid to say the wrong thing, the averted eyes edged with long, curling lashes, that cautiously looked up at her, then quickly looked away again as they made eye contact. Margaret knew she still lived inside of her. Every time Margaret was faced with a new social situation, a new challenge at work, the insecure young girl appeared, telling her she just wasn’t ready, didn’t know enough, wasn’t capable of grand achievement.
Margaret stood a little taller, pulled herself erect into the whole woman she knew she could be. She looked again at the reflection. This time, she saw a grown woman. A woman about to be married. A woman who loved and knew she was loved. The face was rounder, the lips fuller, the eyes shone in confidence. It was a sensuous face, a glowing face, a face that was about to embark on a new journey with a man who loved her. Margaret could see the future in that face, full of promise, children, and new adventures. Margaret smiled at the reflection. It, too, was still a part of her.
But then she eased herself back into her own form. She stood a little less at attention, relaxed into the older body that was hers that morning. She looked back intently at the mirror. The face she saw this time was even fuller, a little saggy, a few more wrinkles than she had first admitted to. But the eyes were calm, all-knowing, all-accepting. She was proud of that face – proud of every gray hair on her head, proud of every crease on her cheek and forehead. She was now a mature woman, a woman that was an accumulation of all her life experiences. A woman that had lived a rich, meaningful life; one of joy and pain, sorrow and celebration, and a full acceptance of it all. None of it was lost. It was still all there, reflected back at her from that beautiful face in the mirror.
