Mirror Work

Every morning I practice becoming the woman I see in the glass, her eyes holding questions I'm not ready to answer. She knows what I'm afraid to admit— that I've been performing this role for so long I've forgotten which parts are script and which are improvisation, which gestures are mine and which I borrowed from women who came before me, their reflections layered like transparencies over my own face. She asks me: Who are you when no one is watching? When the mirror is dark and you can't see yourself in anyone's eyes? I practice the answer like a mantra, a prayer, a spell I'm casting to summon the woman I might become if I stopped trying so hard to be the woman everyone expects to see. Every morning, the ritual: I stand before the glass and study her— the slope of her shoulders, the set of her jaw, the way she holds herself like she's carrying something too heavy to name. I ask her: What would you do if you weren't afraid? She doesn't answer. She just looks back at me with those knowing eyes, waiting for me to figure out that we've been asking the same question all along. So I practice. I practice becoming the woman in the mirror, the one who knows all my secrets, who sees me in my most unguarded moments, who waits patiently for me to recognize that she's been me all along— the me I'm learning to become, one morning, one reflection, one honest look at a time.