I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. I almost always surprise myself. I must not remember or know what I look like.
I remember the first time it happened, but I was in high school and I’d just dyed my hair. Bright, Angela Chase red. From a golden wheat brown that was neither a sunny blonde nor a rich brunette, to art school redhead. Of course my reflection startled me, it was shocking. It was meant to be.
This is different. I’ll catch a glimpse of myself and think “really?” Usually it’s a pleasant “really,” like, my neck is that long? And sometimes it’s a resigned “really,” like, my chest is that spotted?
Today it was my arms. Yesterday it was my legs. It’s as if I haven’t updated my internal software to recognize what my body is today; its strength and endurance (and for my grammar nerds, there’s your semi-colon and it’s/its, you’re welcome and goodnight).
Like, I’m 38 and I still picture the college, and post-college version of myself, which is not who I am anymore. That was a lifetime ago and while I carry that splintered person within me, I am so much stronger around her and because of her.
She is the steel rebar within my cement– she strengthens and shapes me, but she is not my entirety. Yet, she is who I see when I think of myself.
I have not updated my sense of self, which hasn’t been strong for a long time.
When I was in 10th grade, I had an incredible (and problematic) teacher that I totally crushed on. One of our assignments was writing about senses, and one was the sense of self. I usually did pretty well on aced my assignments, but that one I struggled with. Looking back, it’s comical because I had no idea who I was at 15, 16 and I tried so hard to find out.
I thought I would find myself by looking to others, I tried to find people with answers and planned to fake it until I made it. I tried to be EVERYONE, I still do sometimes. Instead of looking inward and being authentically myself and finding my people, I put on personalities and preferences like costumes and tried to fit in with everyone around me.
I did all the things. I burned the fuck out.
I did ballet and played softball and the school play and made honor roll. I was in Amnesty International and President of the IMPACT club. I was on the cheer squad and the first girls water polo team. I dated an emo-goth bisexual and went to church every Sunday. I did Presidential Classroom and went to UC Berkeley and studied abroad and graduated with highest honors and I was toast.
I was exhausted from trying to be all the things to all the people because I was scared that I was not enough as is.
I had an eating disorder and was filling up water bottles with alcohol. I partied all night and slept through half of my midterm, raced to campus (on crutches) in time to write enough on the Philosophy of Politics to pass the class. I was popping diet pills like they were candy and exercising as punishment for eating, then binge on pizza and beer, puke my guts out, and carry on. I stole from the guys who tried to date me and I made a lot of terrible decisions that were not decisions at all.
All of that is true and yet none of that is true anymore. I feel caught, suspended between two versions of myself. This shattered, broken me, and the me that I am becoming. She’s that rebar: broken pieces within me that on their own do nothing, but can help support a great structure. And I’m pouring this cement around her, hoping to make something new. I’m healing around her, but it’s like an organ transplant– my body isn’t sure what to do, do I accept this? Do I reject it?
Acceptance keeps coming up… dammit. I know I need to work on that.
To me, “Acceptance” is tricky because part of it feels like a dereliction of duty, like, I am not fighting this, I am simply accepting it, like a resignation.
Acceptance as an undertaking, as in, I accept this challenge, I will take this on, I will carry this through.
Acceptance as welcoming, being accepted. And now I’ve used it too much and it sounds and looks weird.
I have to do a copy switch in my head when people tell me I have to accept something. I’ll tag on an unspoken “as true”, because there are some terrible things I do have to accept as true, but I do NOT have to accept them as adequate or suitable.
Yes, it’s true there are unacceptable conditions we must accept as true. That is NOT resignation or dereliction of duty, that is facing the reality of a situation so that you can act where you can.
My emotions like to take me all over the place, that’s their job and it’s a human experience. But my work as an adult, to take care of myself, is not to resist the rollercoaster, but to feel those feelings and then face the situation.
I’ve spent so much energy trying to resist or control my feelings, as if those were something a human could control! Next I tried to control my behaviors, until I absolutely could not and rebelled and revolted. Then, I tried to control the world around me, which is completely useless and simply exhausting.
Now I’m working on feeling my feelings, recognizing the truths around me, and focusing on what I can do about it. Every now and then my feelings want to ride the rollercoaster of “Holy shit! Can you believe this is happening?!! Another school shooting, WTF Texas, WTF SCOTUS, GAAAAAAH!!!” That’s called being human. My emotions are doing their job, and I try to feel the feelings and THEN…look a-ROUND, look a-ROUND and find what I can do.
So I volunteer with Moms Demand Action, and as a patient escort with Planned Parenthood, and write letters and postcards with Indivisible and call my Senator on the regular. And yes, it’s exhausting and perhaps a little intense, but you know what it’s not?
It’s not starving my way through my feelings. It’s not self-destruction, or extreme exercise, or binging or purging. And at times it can feel compulsive, even obsessive, but it’s not a set of rules I have to follow, it’s a way I can channel the chaos and do the things I can.
No wonder I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. I need to remember who I am becoming, a badass.
Pretty Good Ugly 