There was a place in my life where I didn't like who I was. I'd say the shocking things that no one else would say just to see people react, to draw attention to myself. I didn't want their attention, yet I felt compelled to get it just the same. I was too loud. Prone to exaggerate. Intent on disguising all that I wasn't by pretending to be someone much bolder, badder, and funnier. Acting and behaving in ways that made me uncomfortable, that felt false to who I truly was underneath, but I thought if I acted more like those around me then I'd not feel so lost and alone and so very much on the outside of the window looking in at everyone else.
There comes a point in every life where we have to own who we are inside and who we are pretending to be.
I spent years in counseling and deep self-analysis, which did me little or no good. Not because I felt counseling had no value. But I never told the truths of anything I knew about myself. I told pretty little stories. I told funny little incidents. I laughed and made jokes about things that hurt deep. I denied the existence of what I carried. I covered things up, much the way a cat does...As though covering it up was going to make the stench go away. No one will notice, I'd say.
I was so wrong. Of course they noticed. They might not know the source of why I hurt or why I lied or why I acted as I did but they recognized the pain, and the smells of death and nasty things. Probably far better than I did because I had become accustomed to the reek of what I carried.
I met a man who became a friend. The sort of person who asked about projects I was working on, about my courses at the technical school, about my children. He was the sort who seemed to be a real friend, not someone intent upon using me. He asked me a personal question one afternoon to which I made a quick reply, very offhand, a reply meant to put him off, to hold him at a distance. He sensed immediately that I was lying and told me plainly that I might well tell myself those pretty little stories, "but when you look into the mirror, there is no lying to the face looking back at you."
It was exactly what I most needed to hear. It was hard to hear. It was truth. Truth hurts.
When he left that day, I walked into the bedroom and stared in the mirror, and I knew the truth behind the face staring back at me. Not satisfied, I went into the bathroom and stared into that mirror, too. I saw the same things looking back. The hurts and angers I'd tucked away, all the ways I hated myself and all the pretenses I'd made up to cover all the deficiencies in my life. I knew that the things that made me uncomfortable about myself were mostly made up by me to cover my real feelings. It was an awakening.
Sometimes we have to see that what we really "own" is a lot of ugly things. We grow accustomed to the ugly things, the stench of things. Our mind tricks us into thinking that our behavior is normal, that this is 'just how I am', that others don't recognize the pain or know how it feels to be whoever or whatever we've allowed, or forced, ourselves to become. But if you're one like myself whose very soul yearns for higher meaning, and beauty, and peace you cannot be satisfied with that bag full of stinking stuff once you've become aware again of the stench of it.
I determined I'd do better; I'd be better. It took far longer than I'd imagined it could possibly take, because I had spent a third of my life learning to disguise who I was. You don't dig out of that many years of stinking stuff right away. Sometimes, admitting why we are who we are is difficult, especially if we've buried it deep but never healed from the wounding that caused it.
Healing is a process. It's rarely instantaneous. You dig down to the root and then you scrape and scrape and scrape thinking you've cleaned up the old wound, only to have it fester up again. It takes time and patience to keep going down to the root and scraping away. And a willingness to face the pain again and again.
At some point we're going to be left with a wound that has healed...It's called a scar. It's a reminder that we, or someone we loved, caused that ugly thing to happen. And that's when we begin the process of forgiveness.
It's more letting go, that's all. Just more letting go. Letting go of what we thought we'd be when we were all done with this process, letting go of the ideal of being beautiful without scars, letting go of the whys of the scar and simply accepting that it is. Forgiving not only the ones who caused it but forgiving ourselves for allowing it to happen. Or forgiving ourselves for making that wound ourselves. And then one day you realize that yes, there is still a scar but it's softer, less visible, there but we notice it less. It no longer matters.
Now and then, I have to take stock all over again. Is what I am at the moment something I want to live with? Am I covering or still recovering? Does a new habit or trait add positively to my life? Am I being true to myself? Am I better? Am I bearing witness to my own ideals or trying to fall in with someone else's? When I look in the mirror, does the woman looking back at me see someone she truly knows, inside and out? Or is she frightened and hiding behind falsehoods and denial?
I have to say that now, some 40 years later, I can honestly say that I'm a truer version of myself than I ever have been. Yes, I've lost things over the last few months that I used to identify myself, but they weren't bad habits, they were roles. There are new roles now for me to try on for size. Not every part is going to be a fit for me, no matter how hard I try to make it so. And this is where I need that mirror, so I can keep close check on the woman I am becoming now.
