The Woman in the Mirror

The woman in the mirror always smiles at me. She doesn’t talk, she doesn’t pry, and she never looks worried about anything. She unsettles me. Deeply. So much that I sometimes find myself unable to breathe under her relentlessly kind, smiling gaze. I sometimes remember her face during sporadic moments of my days, and I feel a small pang, a small ache, somewhere between my chest and my back.

The woman in the mirror scares me. Her presence sends a chill down every bone in my body – a type of terror that utterly paralyzes one’s body while making one’s mind scream with the desire to run far, far away. A type of fear that makes one want to forget all about her presence, while at the same time making one cling onto that feeling – onto that chillingly warm smile – because maybe fear feels better than basking in the resonating silence and loneliness of the room.

The woman in the mirror comforts me. Every time I come back home, I look in her direction. Seeing her there with her frozen smile soothes something deep inside my gut. I don’t want to see her, yet I constantly seek for her. I don’t enjoy her presence, yet I can’t live without her. And so, I keep living my life, stuck in that endless paradox, too afraid to take a step in any direction. I wonder, if I see her at home every day and can’t live without her, does that make her family? Is it okay to let go of family?

The woman in the mirror never appears before my friends. Every time I invite guests over, she vanishes, and I see the reflected image of my tabletop in the space where her smile usually lies. No one, except me, sees her, and so I kept her existence a secret from all those around me. A secret shared between her and me that renders our bond all the more delicate, all the more intimate. As soon as I find myself alone again, she re-vanquishes her place in the mirror, like a queen gallantly reclaiming her throne after a short trip beyond her kingdom, sealing our little secret with that smile.

I resent the woman in the mirror. She stole from me my precious alone time with my mama. The place she occupies in the mirror is not hers; it is mama’s. Mama who used to come into my room, take a seat behind me, and brush my hair until it was silky and warm. Mama who did this quietly every night as I stared at her gentle, loving, smiling face in the big mirror in front of us. Mama was so gentle with me. Mama never reprimanded me or tried to learn more about me; she just smiled at me warmly and unfalteringly, as if she was saying that she doesn’t need to know everything about me to know that she loves me. The woman in the mirror stole those memories from me. She stole that warmth from me.

When they told me I would never see mama again, I did not feel sad. I did cry, but I don’t remember why. After all, she never really talked to me, and so it didn’t make sense for me to feel sad over someone I barely knew. When I sat down in front of the mirror that night, I saw mama’s tender, beaming face, and it reassured me. I thought that I would be okay as long as I could see that face every day. But as the days, months, and then years slowly followed one another, like a delicate ripple travelling along an infinite lake, mama’s features began disappearing little by little. First her wrinkles, then the shape of her face, then her eyes, until only that smile remained, shrouded in a cloud of darkness. Now, I can only see the woman in the mirror, her smile so familiar yet so incredibly distant.

The woman in the mirror is always there for me. The lonelier I feel, the more clearly she appears to me inside that mirror in my room. Sometimes, when I cry, I can almost see her eyes. Her gentle, almond-shaped eyes, casting the most tender gaze upon my contorted face. It’s as if she understands my emotions perfectly. In times like these, the woman in the mirror reminds me of mama, and if I stare at her hard enough, I almost feel like she’ll step out of the mirror to come brush my hair once more, just like she did when I was a child.

The woman in the mirror sometimes appears in my dreams. I would see her watching over me as I run around in a playground. She would come to pick me up at school, and we would walk home together, hand in hand. She would sit across from me and watch me as I golf down my breakfast before bolting out the door. She would sit with me at the dinner table and help me with my homework. She would hold my hand while I open dreadful college decisions. She would smile at me as I walk on stage in my graduation cap and gown to get my diploma. She would always be smiling. She never spoke, she never pried, she never looked worried. She just smiled.

The woman in the mirror instills fear and doubt into my soul. She poisons my mind with questions I can’t answer. Why did mama never talk to me? What were mama’s hopes and dreams for me? Why did she have me? Was she ever disappointed in me? Would she be disappointed with me today? Why was she always smiling? What was she hiding beneath that smile? That darned smile. That lovely smile. The smile that once comforted me and that now fills me with dread and horror.

The woman in the mirror always smiles at me. But sometimes, just sometimes, I picture her lips curling down into a disapproving scowl… and I smile.