Mirror Mirror, Path To My Victor.

You’re always scared. Always doubting yourself whenever it comes to this and tonight, it’s not any different. Like a daily routine, you sit in front of that mirror every single night, with a glass of orange juice mixed with lemon that your elder sister always told you made no sense to her and you stare hard at the mirror.

It’s been a habit you picked when you were 15 and now, 6 years later you still do the same thing. “Dammit!” you curse, frustration finally setting up into you and seeping on every ounce of energy you have left. “Well maybe if you went to tech school like dad wanted you wouldn’t have to have this conversation every single night with yourself,your feet in a bucket of ice from your night shift at the dinner trying to find your way through art school huh?”

You see the eyebags, the void in your eyes and the loss of weight. Not because you are tired of life or some sad stuff, but because you are drained from trying to keep yourself afloat when your parents said they would not help if you went through with the idea of going to art school. But what if you had gone to tech school, landed a job as an IT in Trenton Industries or maybe even C&G like your father wanted then maybe…”Stop it!” you snap at yourself. “You would be miserable. Art has been your passion, your escape when you didn’t even know you needed one. Sure you could hack your Uncle’s high protected security system in like 10 minutes and bypass tons of firewalls and program stuff but that was just fun and a hobby to you not something you saw yourself doing as a career," you say. 

Then you start laughing, full on laughter because oh God you do this every night, convince yourself that you’re right yet you come back to it every time so here you are. So you play some Elton John, you sing loud still sitting in front of that mirror that really you just hope would turn into an actual person so you can have a conversation with them not just the figurines next to it. That same mirror you call it the tunnel to art, that it’s vision is so bright and so promising and shows you how much you’ll be a great person cause everytime you walk away from it, you feel stronger, better, tons of aspirations and inspirations whirling in your brain and you get ready to kick earth’s butt the next day.

“Call your sister, maybe she will have some advice for you,” you say in the most sarcastic tone you could muster. Your sister, owner of a clothing brand that -mind you- you helped her come up with when you were all dressing dolls at her demand because she had 4 years on you. “She didn’t even bat an eyelash when your mother was being hysterical the day you told her you were choosing art over going to some tech school she claimed to have saved so much money for,” you recounter to the reflection as you finish your glass of juice and finally take your feet from that bucket. Because as much as it feels good, catching arthritis won’t pay your way through art school.

You finally just sit there, looking at your reflection and thinking about every scenario, every event, every thought that rooted the assurance in you that yes, you wanted to choose art. You wanted to be an artist. You wanted to draw and paint pictures as much as you wanted to interpret them with your words. You think about the first time you drew half of Messi’s face because you were obsessed with him and the praise you got on the media but the weird looks you got at the dinner table from Aunt Mae and Uncle Richard, who asked why you couldn’t come up with a new programming skill instead.

You remember the time you wrote a poem that had the principal call you-which funny story- you were so excited and scared about because you thought you were finally going to be suspended by him so you can brag about it to your friends the next day but instead, he praised your writing, set you up into a competition where you landed third place and got yourself an ipad.

You remember all those small things and you smile because, for a young kid, you surely knew what you wanted more than anything. You were intrigued by Sandra Botticelli and Robert Frost unlike the boys your age. You think about all the times you quoted Maya Angelou in your head as you went to school and how you played rock paper scissors so you can pick who was better between da Vinci and van Gogh.

You remember how your computer science teacher always graded your work quicker but you were more excited about what topic you got to write on in English and if you could actually outsmart Mr. Lodge because he was a wizard when it came to words and you just wanted to be like him, or better.

You smile and finally you look at yourself, the determination that braced you, nursed you and made you pull through. “Say it to, you deserve it more than anything because you are freaking amazing and paintings and writings are way more interesting than trying to learn how to wipe dirty company secrets or how to hack an arch enemy CEO to only find their disgusting nudes,” you say.

You stare and stare and stare and finally, you just say it. Because you won’t feel content if you don’t, you won’t feel good enough to sass Charles at work tomorrow when he pretends he listens to Mozart and knows all about everything. You won’t feel accomplished. So you stare at your reflection one last time before you say those words and finally take your headache to bed. You smile a full blown bright smile and say. “You made the right choice. You made yourself happy. That’s what matters.”