Images in the Mirror

I have a hard time identifying with the woman that looks back at me from the mirror. Especially first thing in the morning, when I am not really awake. Okay, so I can be a little scary first thing. The hair is disheveled, mostly curling back upon itself and standing in rolls up on my head. One side of it looks more squished than the other. Occasionally I have those lovely indentations of every crease and fold of the pillow case or the palm print of my right hand across my cheek.

The prettiest mornings are the ones that show my "after the allergy hits" face. Swollen eyes, running nose, and itchy skin patches all over my face and arms characterize this distinctive look. If I had braved make-up the day before, the raccoon eyes develop Alice Cooper drips down my face and add to the intensity of the contrast of my generally pasty white pallor and the leftover make up smears against my skin. Those tend to be the days that even small children cannot help but ask if I am okay.

But yet those days are not what make me question who the woman in the mirror actually is. I began having conflict with identifying with her after I turned thirty. Somewhere that woman had become a mother to three beautiful children with one on the way. She had a husband, lived in a two story house, worked but wanted to stay home, and had two cars- a minivan even!

She rarely bought clothes for herself, and had lost track of the last time she had gotten her hair cut and highlighted on a regular schedule. She even had traded her regular beautician for the latest Great Clips close to home. That woman bought nail polish and forgot to do her nails. She had jewelry, but generally had left some or all of it beside the bathroom sink. She even struggled to keep her wedding ring on, because it was starting to feel tight on her hand as her fingers swelled with another pregnancy. So she opted to put it away for a while. Besides, everyone knew her as someone's mom. She was definitely taken.

The lady in the mirror looked a bit tired as the days passed on. Her mind seemed to be racing miles ahead of herself and preoccupied with today's list of things to do. You could see she had the grocery list, children's medicine, soccer practice and ballet class, church functions, work projects, the dry cleaner pick-up, and school assignments revolving in her mind. She didn't seem to have much time to notice that her hair had begun to gray beyond her temples. She could glance in the mirror, but really not see herself. She was just brushing away the hair from her face and contemplating where the scunci was to hold her hair back in a quick ponytail. At this point, it didn't make her look younger anymore, just preoccupied with other things than the latest hair fashion.

For the longest time, she had sold and told the latest fashions. She had a closet full of the latest new things, because she was in tune with the perfectly dressed sales associate. It was part of her job and she loved the opportunity to wear the latest. But the things currently in the closet are not the latest. Some of them are even re-runs from the last time they were popular. They don't look or fit anywhere near the same. Shopping no longer was as fun. It had become a chore to find something, anything that fits the body of someone who has had more than four children.

Why can't the lady in the mirror look like the lady in my mind? Why is this such a relatively cruel joke? The woman in my mind still looks relatively young. Not as naive, but confident. She has an air of optimism about her. Something that draws curious looks and friendly faces to her. She is not afraid of anything- though she might benefit from a little caution at times.

The mind lady has goals that seem to fit every situation. She has the solutions to most of the issues that cause sleepless nights and days fraught with frustration. The mind lady is a good and tireless mother. She looks forward to days and evenings spent with her children and never seems to tire of the joy of working with and for them. She loves the challenge of keeping everything current, the cleaning, the laundry, the house, and the homeschooling. Really she appears the little dynamo that never sits still. There can be a disgusting air of perfection about her.

For a few years, I kept this woman to myself. Slowly as I became more and more familiar with the lives and thinking of some of my elderly patients, I would venture to question them about how they saw themselves. Many of them had easy answers. For some of the women, they appeared almost heartbroken when we would talk about giving up the household chores of laundry, cooking, cleaning, and gardening. They could not fathom a lifestyle that did not allow for them to continue those everyday tasks that had reinforced who they were and what they stood for and took pride in. They wanted to continue their daily lives as they had for every day before.

For others the transition was like the proverbial rolling off a log. They did not see themselves any different than the family or staff members they talked with every day. I struggled to reconcile this difference between each of these groups. I asked more questions. I sought subtle and blatant differences between education, careers, or housewife duties, healthy or dramatically ill. There was no great "ahah" moment to explain why there could be such a difference between the lady in the mirror and the actual image of ourselves for some women.

I asked more questions and grew older myself. I had hoped and prayed for more wisdom to accept the stranger's image I continued to see in the mirror. The only answers I have found are these. I was the happiest back when I had my first children. I felt I had a true purpose and optimism about who I was becoming and the destiny of our family. I had faith that God would show us his path and his ways, so that we could delight in them and serve Him. I was comfortable with myself, my life and with my God despite the challenges back in those days.

Please don't read this to mean I was not happy having more children. There is nothing further from the truth. We asked God for each of our children and he gave them to us without reservation and we received them with great joy and pride.

What has happened is that I have become saddened by the losses of life after having our first few children. With every new pregnancy came a greater awareness of what a tight rope life is stretched between the beginning and end of the future for our children and ourselves.

I have become more wise and perhaps more jaded. I trust fewer people and fewer opportunities. I sit in much lengthier deliberations about choices for our family and for myself, sometimes agonizing for night after night seeking the best answers. The woman in the mirror reflects my fears, and deliberations. She seems to live tenuously at best. She shows evidence of having seen too much at times during her life.

Occasionally the woman in the mirror seems sad to the core of her being. She shows the signs of having cried herself to sleep for not having all the answers or all the resources. Her cheeks have the stains of floods of tears at the loss of 3 miscarriages and the fear of never having another child. Sometimes she seems to be searching for answers to questions that have no answers, but they continue to be questions she cannot let them go.

There are times the lady I see is happy and busy. She seems to suffer the "shiny bauble" distraction, as she half heartedly runs a brush through her hair. She is daydreaming as she dashes out the door to work in the garden, or see the marching band at the football game, or meet friends at knitting. Those times she can be scattered in a happy way. Too consumed in the joys of life, of having things to do, and people and family to share them with.

I have seen the woman in the mirror look thoughtful and concerned on the days she is driving a child to their first day at school, preparing to drive for the ballet audition of a lifetime, dressing to sit and watch a graduation, or going off in search of the new dorm for college across the state. Pride underlies all of her concern as she plans, and rehearses to herself in the mirror the supporting role she must play for each of their children as they grow up and away from the family.

I wish I could better know and like the woman in the mirror. I find her aloof and afraid of her own shadow sometimes. She tends to be overly self-critical and rarely measures up against the other women she sees. She wants to be thinner, prettier, smarter, more faithful, and sometimes even younger than the other women she finds herself surrounded by. Not because there is a real competition, but because perhaps if she were some how different, she could somehow be enough to each of the people in her life. She could solve problems, heal wounds and comfort sorrows better than she has been able to do up to now. She somehow would be able to leap small buildings in a single bound and still be ready and willing to be with a child or her husband. Whe would be all she dreamed and wanted herself to be.