In my parent’s house, there is a floor-length mirror that has traveled with us as the fifth member of our family. From house to house, coast to coast, the mirror has followed us, always ending up perched against a wall. The mirror has been a witness to time and how it passes, observing as we age. Every nook and cranny of my childhood exposed before it -- moments of tenderness, bliss, and pain. Everything from my first steps, to my first words, to me adorning my mother’s oversized clothes as a toddler. Aching for the day that I look like her.
As a child, the mirror watched as my mother walked in front of it, scanning her body and shaking her head the lower she got. Her eyes crinkled, her mouth pouted, and she pulled on the skin at her sides and stomach. “I need to lose a few pounds,” she would groan, glancing at her 6-year-old daughter for approval. In response, I would drop my gaze at my own juvenile body, hoping that I would never grow to look like her.
Once I got older and matured more, the mirror would see moments of me shooting up, outgrowing my jeans and shoes. It would capture me sulking back and forth in front of it, pulling my skin at my sides and stomach. “I need to work out more,” I would moan, tugging on my hips so that they didn’t appear as wide. In high school, my mother would stand in front of the mirror and scold herself for everything she ate that week, saying she hates her body. I would look down at myself -- at the body identical to hers -- and get confused when she would tell me I looked fine.
Before going to college, I took a final look in the mirror, inspecting my body and its curves. In the years following, its only spectator would be my mother. It would watch as her fingertips graze over her skin -- one day lingering over a lump on her right breast. And the mirror would watch as her hair began to litter the floor beneath her. The life left her face, weight left her bones, and she gushed, “Well at least I have the body I always wanted now.”
Now, when I visit home and look into the mirror, I bite my lip at the impulse to criticize the girl staring back at me. I think of my mother, and yearn to be as strong as she is — proud knowing that what I see in the mirror is identical to her. Wide hips, supple flesh, rosy skin. A belly that holds the organs that provide me life and sustenance; a body that can fight through cancer until the end. I think of the girls before us and the ones after who will inherit the same strong, feminine figure.
And I think that when the mirror gets passed down to me, I will break it.
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