“When you wake up in the morning and glance at the mirror, what do you see?”
IT’S a question that would jump-start tangled thoughts of who and what kind of a person you are now. You try not to dwell too much on it, yet you can’t resist but look again and reflect. It’s like a magnet that attracts the memories of yesterday. Suddenly, you remember all the reasons you became that someone.
You remember the mornings you woke up with a bare face, smelly breath, messy hair and funny-looking PJs which meant, maybe, you had a normal day—nothing new, the usual “meehhh-just-trying-to-survive-kind-of-a-day.”
But you also remember the mornings you woke up with a sober face, smudged mascaras, messy shade of lipstick still on, and a broken heart: a quick fire of how much booze you drank during those nights.
There were mornings you never want to look in the mirror because it reminds you how lost you were. You didn’t want to bother asking yourself when you already knew the answer.
There were times when you thought of giving up and blaming it all on everyone—especially yourself.
You hated your own reflection. It flashbacks all the chances taken and missed, the people you loved and lost, the dates remembered and forgotten, the heart that was once whole and the scattered pieces of it, as well as the scars that faded and stayed. It brings back the “whys” and “hows.” You can’t escape from it, because it’s already embedded in you.
But look at it from another angle: No matter how much you avoid looking at yourself, you knew it is never the way out and will never result in growth.
Nothing will be solved when you escape; it brings you more pain. When you try to run away, it will just haunt you, up until you get to your grave.
What do you see? It is indeed a tricky question you should ask yourself every day. Some might see it as a big deal, and some might not. But behind the question is the challenge to remember how it felt and promise the self to be better each day.
You are either scarred or flawed; both or in between, I hope they make you stronger. It is only the self that can make decisions on what to do next.
I wish that you would continue choosing love, despite it being too much to ask for. I pray that when you look in the mirror again, you will see the person who could have waved the white flag, but didn’t.
It is only the self who can attest to the fact of you being broken and trampled upon, but never clung to the idea of giving up.
Just to be clear: the reflection of the self sees what was, what is, and what will be. Keep fighting.
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A young banking and finance professional, the author is a graduate of the San Beda University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Major in Financial Management. This future lawyer describes herself as “a wanderer, a free soul and a firm believer of love in chaos.”