The Girl in The Mirror

I’m bored. Or maybe bored is the wrong way to describe it, because I know there are things I could to alleviate it. Maybe I’m just tired, tired of myself. Of my inability to join the world at times.

Tired of being the flake. Tired of being the clown in public, and the crying girl in private. Tired of evenings alone because I know I can’t go out on nights like this and be the funny one right now. Sometimes I think of my personality of almost being like a pool of water around me. Some days it’s like the ocean, fun for some who brave the waves, enjoy the tides and openness, the sheer aliveness of it around them. Other times it’s like a lake, cool and calm. Inviting people in to bask in its slow lapping water, to splash along its edges, enjoy what it has to offer.

But most of the time I feel like its just still, still water. And the slightest thing can make it ripple around me.

Tonight I’m rippling, like someone has thrown stones into my stillness and disturbed me. Like watching your reflection in the water be blown away by the intrusion, and loosing sight of what you are viewing. Others probably see all the different variations of water around me, but in my head for me it’s always the still one. It’s the one that’s the true reflection of how I perceive myself, and how I feel I am. Still and dark. Murky and intriguing to only myself.

I hate the ripples. Hate when I feel the stones land and know its upset that calm deep and disturbs the monster lurking underneath. Sometimes I don’t even know who threw the stones. Maybe it was me?

Who can I blame when I can’t see where they are coming from, how long they’ll continue, how deep they will pierce through. Sometimes I know I’m doing it myself, and maybe I was trying to skip a stone along my water in fun, but I got the angle wrong and shattered its stillness instead.

So tonight I sit here with my water disturbed all around me. Like my aura is quivering around me, making that pool of thought and emotion ripple over and over again, causing shockwaves right to the very bottom.

I try to calm it, to breathe deeply in a pattern to lessen the ripple effect, but it’s hard. Amazingly hard work to do nothing but breathe. It takes all my concentration to stop myself throwing more stones in, I can feel my mind dredging up thoughts, and throwing them back at me and causing yet more disturbance. Like a rain of pebbles coming down on me, ripping through the shelter I’m trying to build at the same time. One hand frantically putting up a roof to stop it, the other hand throwing stones.

Amazing how I can even argue with myself like that isn’t it.

Boredom is my enemy tonight. Knowing I can’t go out because of my mood, yet nothing to do at home but write these random thoughts into a computer. I have a bottle of port to keep me company, and a grey poodle curled up beside me.

I thank God for the poodle. Actually I thank God for all animals. He knew what he was doing when he made them. Animals always help me, some more than others, but any animal is bound to calm the ripples more than any person could.

Not sure what it is about them, just their persona around me. Their lack of questions maybe? I feel like they can come into my water anytime. If they are a dog they jump amongst the waves, joyously chasing them back to the shore. If they are a cat they bat the sea foam with their paws, or dip them in trying to swat at imaginary fish only they can see underneath, enjoy feeling the sun on their back as they watch their own reflection. If they are a horse they gallop along in the shallows, making me feel alive and giving me a feeling of power and strength, like its all their inside me ready to surge forward the moment I need it.

I welcome the disturbance of my water from animals. Animal ripples in my water caress, tickle and sooth me. Lapping along my thoughts, and sweeping the debris away and leaving me clear.

So tonight I welcome the poodle into my head. Welcome her quite presence here beside me as I type. I’m not sure if she knows my water is disturbed. I know some animals that can pick up on it. Sense the quiver of it around me maybe.

As I sit here I can see my own reflection in the mirror staring back at me. Thinking as it watches me type. I sometimes want to ask that girl if I can trade places with her. She looks so much more capable than I feel. I can’t always tell what she is thinking about me, but I know I disappoint her. I feel like I’ve let her down. Not lived up to her expectations of me. I don’t care so much about not being what other people think I should be, as much as I care about what she thinks.

I remember reading something once, or maybe I just had a thought somewhere over the years…. who knows, but I recall something in me saying that your outside is just what the inside gets around in.

So I’m looking at myself…. at that capable appearing girl looking back at me. I see my outsides, and I see that to the rest of the world they appear just fine. Despite my quest for a thinner frame I’m not really overweight, I have hair people are envious of and dimples when I smile. There are no glaring faults to be found, no deformities to be ashamed of. No wonder that girl is disappointed in me. Surely with her outsides, she shouldn’t feel the slight ripples that she does.

Sometimes though I think even she sees that maybe it’s the outsides that are cause for concern because of this very thing. She is tall, slim, attractive even. The girl in the mirror is the one who is the life of the party, the one people crowd around to listen to her tales. She is considered the funny one, the wild one, the glamorous one. Why then is she alone again tonight?

She sees me looking at her as I stare back at myself. We question each other her and I. We can agree on this one thing. That somewhere maybe we went wrong. We were blessed with so much yet let it go unappreciated, have no one to reinforce what we have.

I have disappointed her. I have disappointed myself.