I see myself

I get overwhelmed every time I stop and really look in the mirror. Not by my feminine features, no. I have had these boobs and soft hips for so long now that they are no longer a novelty to me. I barely recall what I looked like before puberty set in, before my body transformed. I kept my hair short for most of primary school. So at that age where for some kids, hair is the only gender telltale, I had no distinguishing features. Many are the times I got worked up into a huff because people innocently thought me a boy. Now I can barely summon those images of myself from memory. I only remember myself as I am now.

In the mirror, I see keen scrutiny. I am both the specimen of study and the eagle eye that stares right through as though my soul were an open casket. I am shocked by the scars I thought were long healed, some whose origin I can not place. I see me. And I want to ask questions so I can perhaps comprehend me.

But that scares me. Moments of reflection or conversations with myself make me nervous. I have a pretty well developed ego. The easiest way to inflate it so to live in oblivion. Avoid those weird ‘self examination; moments and just take on life unburdened by conscience.

I find that impossible to do. Perhaps because growing up, I was taught the importance of self evaluation.

The reason I am often overcome by emotion whenever I stop and look at me within is because I see me as I had dreamed. I see both the woman I had wanted to become, and the woman I have turned out to be. On one hand, I see my motivation, a girl whose zeal I am familiar with. I see a woman who doesn’t know self doubt. She is sure of herself. She is living up to the standards and plans I dreamed for me. On the other hand I see both the strain of loss and the shimmer of victory in the lines of her eyes. She has been scarred and carries with her a bitterness I do not know how to erase. And she wears her achievements with both a secure pride and a fragile arrogance. She has made it thus far, worn out and yet fired up and ready to go on.

I see myself.

I am a child. I am an adult.

I am still a girl. I am already a woman.

I am clueless. I know exactly who I am.

I am very fragile. I am extremely strong.