Mirror, Mirror On The Wall……

“Good morning, young man. How are you today?” The older gentleman was so sincere and kind in his greeting, but all I wanted to do was yell back “I AM NOT A BOY!” rip open my shirt, show him that I was wearing a bra, and tell him that my cramps were so bad that day that I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. None of that happened though, because every manner instilled in me from a very young age kept me from correcting him, so instead I just smiled and mumbled something incomprehensible (that never happens anymore, unless a man is so ridiculously gorgeous that I just stand there like a blithering idiot…thankfully that rarely happens. Well, until I meet Marshall Mathers, of course). I was 11, we were moving from Pennsylvania to Texas, and I was watching our yard sale table because my Mom had gone back in the house for something. I developed early; I got my period at ten, breasts shortly thereafter, and after my first bra was in desperate need of a razor or a home in a place with a European attitude towards grooming. I had my period before they’d shuffled all the boys out of the classroom so the girls could watch that film about our changing bodies. I distinctly remember something in the film about lying upside down on an ironing board propped up on the back of a couch in order to ease cramps. No, I never tried it, although I was tempted. I honestly thought I would end up breaking the ironing board, and the wrath that would ensue from my Mom over that would have been exponentially worse than my cramps. But I digress…….

Until I was 12 years old and my Mom let my hair grow out, I was often mistaken for a little boy. I had short hair and thick brown glasses (as evidenced by the photo on the left, which is from 6th grade). Having attended Catholic school from first through fifth grades, I had no idea how to dress, and the fact that my Mom is Korean meant that my sense of fashion involved wearing checkered pants with a plaid shirt. Yes, I know not all Koreans have bad fashion sense; that was a broad generalization based on my childhood experiences. Can we focus, please? You can’t see my pants in this photo, which is probably a good thing, but they’re parachute pants. I begged incessantly for them, and they are the one “cool” thing my Mom got right. When I asked for Reebok high-tops, I got Nikes (before they were cool). I asked for a Coke shirt; I got Pepsi jeans. See where I’m going here? I also got in pretty serious trouble when, one day, she saw that I had a total of about 15 band-aids on both my legs. I finally admitted that I’d shaved my legs because a boy had called me a monkey in school, and my Mom proceeded to ground me for shaving my legs without her permission (I totally still cut my legs all the time because I’m usually singing to 80’s songs in the shower, dancing, and clearly I’m easily distracted). I have seen something shiny and am veering off the path…where was I? Oh, sixth grade, Texas, public school. Public school was an eye opener for me; designer labels on the rich kids mixed with poor kids who literally wore clothing made from old curtains (Sound of Music style, except it was Battlestar Galactica. I can’t make this stuff up. It was a skirt, and she was teased mercilessly for it). I lived close enough to school to walk or ride my bike, and one day on my way home, a pick-up truck passed me with two young girls sitting in its bed. “My friend thinks you’re cute!!” one of them shouted, as they collapsed in a fit of giggles. Startled, I looked around to see who they were talking to. Yeah, it was me. I mumbled something like, “I’m a GIRL!” and kept on walking (by the way, I’m pretty sure we watched that “Our Changing Bodies” film sponsored by Always that day). Once I got home, I’m sure I closed my bedroom door, put on some Duran Duran, and cried, wondering when I would finally get a boyfriend or be seen as the young woman I was quickly becoming. That same year my friends gave me a note they said was from a guy I had a crush on. It wasn’t, and I made an ass of myself going up to him in my short haircut and glasses telling him I felt the same way. My friends had actually written it as a joke. Kids can be pretty cruel.

In 7th and 8th grade, some of the boys called me Bulldog because they said that’s what I looked like. Ironically, these guys were my friends (again, children are cruel). When I had finally had enough one day, I punched one of them and gave him a black eye. After that they called me Rocky. Sometimes you just can’t win.

Fast forward to tenth grade in Fayetteville, North Carolina. My hair had finally grown out a bit, but I still had those hideous thick brown glasses. I was 15 years old. My Dad, who had recently discovered the wonders of contact lenses himself, decided to go behind my mother’s back (she thought I was “too young”) to get me some. I’ve never really discussed this with my Mom, but I firmly believe that she, with nothing but good intentions, was trying to keep me from becoming a young woman too quickly, and I don’t fault her for it. My Mother is absolutely stunning, and it runs in her family. My youngest aunt was a finalist in the Miss Korea pageant. My Mom used to tell me stories of how all the girls wore mini-skirts in the 60’s, and how she could bat her long eyelashes at any man to get ahead in line whenever she wanted. She would always follow up those stories with a firm, “Don’t you ever do that! Always be independent and don’t depend on a man for anything!” Needless to say, it was (and in some ways still is) a bit confusing.

Contacts changed everything. We moved to Germany that summer, and I distinctly remember the comments from guys in my 10th grade yearbook when we left North Carolina. They lamented the fact that I was moving and that we never had the chance to “get to know each other better.” My young mind simply could not grasp that; I was still the same person I was with thick glasses and bad hair. How come they didn’t want to get to know me before? When I looked in the mirror, I saw the girl with short hair and glasses, with a chest that I struggled to hide (side note: one of the NC boys told me as he signed my yearbook that they all used to watch my chest when we went over bumps on the school bus because I was always looking out the window and never paid any attention to them. Now I wear better bras), thighs that I thought were too fat, and absolutely zero understanding of a body that was quickly growing into an hourglass figure; I always thought my hips were too wide and my butt too big. I only had two boyfriends in high school, and in all the years I spent in college, I technically only had one, and he became my husband.

Fast forward to adulthood; a few years after my divorce I was told by a man that if I looked more like “that girl over there,” a girl who could have used about 15 cheeseburgers, that I would actually get some dates. Let me just say that I’ve been the same height since I was 13 years old: 5’2″. Okay, okay….5’1 3/4″. Whatever. Anyway, after my divorce, I started to gain weight. Once I moved to Northern Virginia, I started gaining a lot of it. I had a closer relationship with Reduced Fat Ruffles and hot dogs (not in that kind of way with the hot dogs, geez…they make stuff for that kind of thing. Believe me. I have four of them) than I did with some of my friends (still do sometimes). Anyway, I had just been on a disastrous Match date after listening to yet another genius tell me to take everything about West Point and the Army off my profile; it just scared men away. I asked what I should say when they ask where I went to school; the genius had no response for that. So I went on a date with a DC lawyer due to the newly sanitized profile, and inevitably the conversation came around to school. I told him I went to a small engineering school just north of New York City. “Oh really? I’m from NY. Where?” After some hemming and hawing, I finally told him that I went to West Point. “Oh! Okay. Wow.” Finishes his drink. “Excuse me for a moment.” Presumably he went to the restroom, but apparently while he was gone, he also paid the bill. He came back to the table, didn’t sit back down, shook my hand, and told me it was nice to meet me. Needless to say, when I went home that night, the woman I saw in the mirror was the 11 year old girl with thick glasses and a boy’s haircut.

Because I still see the girl you see in the photo on the left and not the one on the right, which was taken just last month, I sometimes have a hard time accepting compliments. I deflect them by making some self-deprecating remark, and I know if I keep doing that, people will eventually stop complimenting me. There’s a fine line between self-confidence and arrogance, and it’s just so damn difficult to get that negative self-talk out of my head, particularly when, for the majority of my life, my self-esteem was somewhere south of the toilet. Immediately following my divorce, my self-esteem was the lowest it has ever been in my entire life. After over eight years of marriage and nine years together, my husband walked out and told me not only that he wasn’t in love with me anymore (duh, got that), but that he also didn’t think he’d ever been in love with me. He later took that last part back, but you can’t un-hear words like that. Ever. I thought no man would ever want me again after my husband walked out. I thought I wasn’t good enough. I thought I wasn’t smart enough. I thought I wasn’t pretty enough. I worked my ass off to finally learn how to love the woman I saw in the mirror. I readily admit that I have seen two therapists, been on Prozac, spent time (not all willingly) alone having some serious talks with the woman in the mirror, and even more with the Man Upstairs. I have made friends with myself. I have made peace with my mistakes. I’ve acknowledged my own failures, accepted my faults, capitalized on my strengths, and minimized my weaknesses. I’ve nourished friendships with people who truly care about me, and about whom I truly care, instead of wasting time on people who simply aren’t worth it. I’ve learned how to not completely silence, but to at least shush that nasty voice in my head 90% of the time. You see, I am totally good enough. I am smart enough (and doggone it, people like me…..sorry, Stuart Smalley and his daily affirmations still help). And I am pretty enough. And in my most arrogant voice, that’s what I say to that nasty one in my head; the one that tells me to go ahead and have another potato chip (I’m a little obsessed with them, can you tell?). The one that tells me I’ll never find true love. The one that I may not ever be able to be rid of, or even want to, because, in a way, it makes me strive to be a better woman. It encourages me to have more self-confidence by bringing me down. She no longer speaks to me in my own voice, because my voice is how I answer her. It’s my voice that shares these things with you, on this blog and on other social media, in the hopes that it won’t take the next person 42 years to realize that the person looking back at them in the mirror has always been perfect. You’ve been looking at your reflection through the eyes of that nasty voice in your head, and you need to learn to look at your reflection through the eyes of the people who love you, because they see you as God sees you. Perfect. It isn’t easy to do, and it remains a struggle for me as I continue to battle emotional eating, gain wrinkles, fight to get back in shape, and wrestle with my own demons, but it’s totally worth it. Because my heart is happy again, which means that maybe, just maybe, it’s ready to accept someone into it again. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.