………….
There is a difference between merely looking at oneself and truly seeing what is there. Most learn, and early, how to avoid the latter.
A mirror, a true one, does not flatter. It merely humbles.
It does not reflect the narrative we construct about who we are.
It reveals only what remains once the performance has ended, and for that reason, most reflections are not mirrors at all.
We become curators of our own surfaces.
Taught at a young age, we choose which angles to favor, which truths to frame, not always from vanity, but from the quiet knowledge that to be wholly seen is seldom wise, and seldom welcome.
But there are moments, rare and unbidden, when something still and wordless returns us to a version of ourselves we had not meant to meet: not the face offered to others, nor even the one we quietly hoped to become, but simply what remains, what lives deep within us.
And if one is fortunate, or very unfortunate, they will know it, not with comfort, nor with shame, but with the solemn recognition that this, too, is them… and always was.
That, in the end, is what reflection grants, not revelation, nor warning, but the quiet recognition that even the self, most known and most hidden, must one day be met without disguise.
And when that moment comes, it will not ask who you wished to become, only whether you are willing to look, and still call it yours.
