The Mirror, the Photo, or Me?
By Judith Cullen
© 2015
It has taken me a long while to get to this point. I have never
had a very good self-image. I never
considered myself attractive, and some days I still do not. The reality is far more disturbing than that.
It was not just what I thought I wasn’t, it was what I thought I was:
massively imperfect, grossly flawed, highly unappealing. I’d
like to say that I have matured to the point that I realize how wrong that view
point was and is. I would like to say that I
fully recognize how popular culture and the media feed the kind of beast that
destroys women’s perceptions of themselves as lovely. I’d really like to acknowledge that I deny
the impossible standards of beauty that we are fed from infancy. I would really like to say that, and some days
I can. Other days I would kill to loose
100 lbs because I just see “me the lump.”
I’ve noticed that there are several different "me" images that
I perceive. There is the me that I see
in the mirror. Thanks to some of the
consciousness-raising mentioned above, that image is one that I increasingly
love. Honestly, it is more beautiful now
than ever. The years, the miles, the joys, the heart aches –
they are all reflected back to me. No matter the frustrations of the moment,
the doubts or uncertainty, the sum of these happenstances equals something lovely. This me has terrific friends, had some great
luck, had some challenges that were worth over-coming, and stands to expect
more of the same in a future that still holds a lot of possibilities. This me is very pretty. I like her.
