mirrors

Or how I learned to love my reflection and lose the dust and distortions

166

Always in our own company.

All that is akin to me, in nature and history, speaks to me, praises me, urges me forward, and comforts me: other things are unheard by me, or immediately forgotten. We are always only in our own company.

The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche

Putting my phone on Do Not Disturb has not soothed the disturbances from my phone. I’m constantly pulling my fingers down the screen to see if someone’s answered me. Someone earlier today gave me a bit of a pep talk about how I shouldn’t try to control things. How I can be a bit of a chameleon. While I think this is true of myself, I think it is true of humanity as a whole.

Maybe it comes from a need to people please. A need to always be connected to people. To be around people so that I can enjoy myself and how I make others feel. There’s a need to make people feel stimulated, make people feel happy. It’s not a purely selfless endeavor. I love talking to people. I love experiencing a reflection of myself in another person. Sometimes that reflection is like a mark on the surface of the other person. A small mirror in their thinking that I can see myself in. Sometimes it’s a communication of shared experiences that allows me to see myself more clearly in the blurry reflection that is beholden to me when I see the world.

But why do others illuminate this world-reflection? Why is there a need on my end for others to be adorned with my own mirrors? And why must I be decorated with these mirrors? Must I wear them? Will I be happier if I don’t? There seems to be a relationship here that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Sometimes someone comes into your life who is like a full-size mirror. Talking to them and getting to know them is like getting to know yourself. This person isn’t just someone who presents you with a mirror that makes you look taller or makes you look more handsome. This isn’t even a mirror that makes you look wavy, as if you’ve entered a fun house and you can’t comprehend what you actually look like at the end. These mirrors, these people, allow you to see yourself in your full depth, warts and all. You talk to them and it’s almost as if another part of yourself has been playing a game of tennis from behind the mirror. It is a spitting image of you. Sometimes it even spits on you. You’re sure that it’s a satisfactory representation of you, that you won’t be able to find another mirror that allows you to get that pimple on your face that was revealed to you only then.

You stare into that mirror for a while and really study yourself in it. Sometimes you see people that have adorned you with their mirrors and you see yourself in those mirrors, but it is only in shards. They reveal certain parts of yourself that you hate, and some that you love, but never the full picture. This deconstructed nature of the mirror forces you to examine those traits in separation. They create resentment for those moments when you catch yourself staring in the wrong shard. At the same time, staring at the right shard can create joyous moments of connection, with a disregard for the bad parts.

But back to the people that allow you to stare at the whole picture. These people force you to examine every imaginable blemish, freckle, mole, and imperfection on your body. But they also let you see the beautiful smile in between it all, the strapping muscles hidden beneath the pimples. The beautiful skin dazzling on your face amongst rows of blackheads. In short, the shards collapse together and you have to view yourself as a full person. For me, the complexities of how I relate to myself vanish. I can see myself and have complete compassion for every insecurity I have. I see myself in this person in a way that is real. It’s a way that’s not distorted. This person has allowed me to truly have compassion for my insecurities. I have compassion for that person as well. They see themselves in me and they see the impact that I have on other’s lives. They see the curiosity and wonder that I approach life with. They see how my interests fit together. Intertwined in our aimlessness we have an aim: an acceptance of insecurity.

But mirrors come and go. Shards fade. Whole mirrors collapse into shards. Only to be collected together again. You can try to glue them back together. But sometimes like a magnet with the same charge, the pieces repulse each other, refusing to be glued back together. It doesn’t mean you’ve lost your mirror. You’ve only lost a mirror.

Your mirror exists as a productive force in you. You can create it in others. You can see it in the world. You see it when you reflect on past experiences. When you reflect on the future. Or when you reflect on the present. There is a certain sense in which you are trying to see yourself clearly. Sometimes the world can show you that, but other times you meet someone who cleans your mirror. Or is your mirror.

The truth is, I’m surrounded by mirrors. My world can be blurry sometimes. Sometimes it can only be found in little shards that show me the worst parts of myself, sometimes it shows me the best parts of myself. Sometimes the mirrors are distorted as if I’m walking through a funhouse. When I look for texts from others I’m searching for a mirror that can show me the clear pieces of my mirror that I’ve given to others. The parts that I want to see in others. Sometimes those mirrors only show me blemishes. Sometimes there is no mirror and I’m left staring at a distorted picture of myself.

I’ve been trying to understand why I seek the approval of others, but I think I search for my reflection. I guess I get flashes of brilliance where the dust of the many mirrors is swept off in one fell swoop. Other times, there is a hurricane that clears the dust for a single moment but then leaves it lying in places that I thought would be clear forever.

I think that I am only now beginning to clear the dust from those mirrors and to see the real me. To stare myself head-on with compassion, with some blind spots here and there, but taking those one at a time. Bringing out my duster to see the flashes that I reflect onto others in this world. It will be a continuous journey through this fun house.

for musical accompaniment see I’ll Be Your Mirror by The Velvet Underground