Who is this person in the mirror? I do not recognise her. Is she my my mother? One of my grandmothers? No. Their faces were familiar and I loved them.
I don’t like the way this one looks at me.
I don’t like the way I look at myself.
I don’t like the way I look.
I have not been this deeply critical of my face since I was a teenager. I thought I had accepted wrinkles and aging in my 40s. But post-menopause, I realise that decade was still the flush of youth.
Now I’m thin-skinned, literally and figuratively. My chin and neck form a diagonal drape. I have a persistent wart on my nose that proclaims the true witchiness inside me. I’m crooked on the left and sagging. I definitely have a good side now.
Or do I? The right half is no great shakes, either. My eyes are tired, shadowed, baggy. My nose is perpetually too red and my lips too pale. My face is lined. Yes, they are the happy wrinkles of laughter and smiles, but also a lifetime of entrenched Resting Bitch Face.
On the plus side, my weakening eyesight makes is harder to see the details if I don’t look closely. Or if I do look closely. Sometimes even the 10x magnifying mirror doesn’t help me locate that one irritating hair that tickles my lip.
One actual good point is that Mirror Me has great hair. The silver splotch at my temple looks intentional and the streaks running through the rest are almost fashionable.
I want to love this face the same way I loved my foremothers’ but it’s going to take a lot of acceptance to get there. My best tool for that is art and that means self portraiture. By examining my face and interpreting it in paint, pencil, and print, I will learn to see myself differently.
