Mirrors

Having a baby as taught me a lot, especially as she grows, and the things she learns to love and do.

The hubby works at six so when I get up the morning to get ready for work I put Ashtyn on the floor by me so she can look in the mirror. I noticed how happy she was, looking at herself in the mirror, she was laughing and smiling, and I thought to myself, “Man, I wish that was my reaction when I look in the mirror.” Instead I judge and think of how I wish I could look a different way.

Maybe if my eyebrows could just be a little thinner and not so unibrow’y

Maybe if my nose wasn’t so large and in charge

Maybe if my face wasn’t as chubby as the Michelin mans.

Maybe if one of my eyes wasn’t saggier than the other

The list could go on and on…

After thinking that it made me sad. Ashtyn may be a baby and doesn’t quite care or know to care what others may think, but seeing herself made her happy.

I don’t know exactly when looking in the mirror became so depressing but I think it hurt so much more realizing that it has been for a while now.

It’s funny that as a society we care so much about how we look or how others view us. We would rather have someone judge us based on our appearance over how we are as people. We make friends based on how “good looking” they are not by how they treat us. Or maybe high school mentality has finally become the “super senior” in the world. Never growing up and realizing what’s actually important in life.

Models and actors/actresses aren’t perfect although we’d like to think so (I think they might too.) They have fat and wrinkles and uneven body parts. Some are even famous because of their strange looks.

In high school there was a kid who was blind. He was my friend and used to tell me about all the girls that he thought were hot and sexy. That was always funny to me because he couldn’t see them. Was I missing something? The girls he described were not what I would call hot and sexy. One day I asked him how he judged girls… His answer was pretty simple. He said, “By how they talk to me and what they say about others.” HUH!?!? This is not what I was expecting from a “typical guy.”

Obviously then his answer seemed stupid and pointless so I forgot about it.

Now that I have my own daughter, this “typical guy” answer makes me hopeful, not just for my own daughter but other girls as well.

Good looks end with time, although Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Lopez will always be lucky and be gorgeous.

Impressions, friends and memories of others and yourself last, lets just say a lifetime.

A wise woman named Abeline once said “You is kind, you is smart, you is important.”