SelfAbsorbed.ME : ‘It’s Your Life, We Just Write it Funnier’

I was having a good week. It wasn’t so much that things were going my way, but my demeanor was partly sunny with a very low chance of precipitation. I’ve been concentrating on a more care-free attitude, an attempt to perspire less over life’s minor details. The fact that I’m actively working on setting my spirit free probably doesn’t bode well, but this week had gone surprisingly well.

Monday: After dinner, I enjoyed eating Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream without the usual feelings of 1) guilt for such a late-night indulgence and 2) resentment towards my normal, hum-drum, puttering metabolism.

Tuesday: At the gym, when some girl ran in front of me to snatch the last available elliptical machine, I didn’t have the impulse to grab her ponytail and drag her off.

Wednesday: Despite already running late for work, I did not feel frenzied or frustrated as I sat on a W train at the 34th Street stop for 10 minutes and watched not just a Q, but also an N come and go on the opposite track. I was getting off at the next stop. The hurried debate of whether or not to switch trains just didn’t make sense. Besides, there was a couple, a girl in her mid-twenties and a guy in his mid-thirties, displaying unfathomable amounts of PDA. As a witness to such an abhorrent crime of passion, I felt a certain civic duty to stay and make sure business didn’t get too risky.

When I finally arrived at 42nd Street, I got off the subway, somewhat disheveled with my coat unbuttoned and my bag hanging on my elbow, and proceeded towards my office. That’s when I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a gleaming black skyscraper window.

Hold up.

That was not how I looked in my mirror less than thirty minutes ago. What was once a form-flattering A-line skirt now had me looking at my hips saying, I don’t think I can handle this… Whoah…I don’t think I’m ready for this jelly. My body’s too bootylicious…

Self-consciousness interrupted my broken-down version of the Destiny’s Child song as I realized that I was standing still on a very busy street, obviously gawking at my reflection in a window. I hurried on.

I don’t usually look at myself in window reflections. People could notice that I’m checking myself out. Or, someone on the other side of that window might assume I’m making eyes at them. But in this instance, my reflection caught me off-guard. Maybe I’d just happened upon a particularly distorted sheet of glass. No need to panic. Yet.

I got to the office and went straight to the bathroom to see the real me. Someone was in there. I waited. None other than arch-nemesis Sushi Girl emerged a minute later, looking dressed to impress, as usual. She waved at me with her fingers and then dramatically rolled her eyes as she said, “Ugh, that mirror is like, the biggest skinny mirror ever. Don’t you hate knowing you’re like, twice that size?”

“Uhhh. Yeahhh…” I said, trying to think of an adequate response as she brushed passed me. “Actually, it made me worried I’d involuntarily developed an eating disorder or had a tape worm or something. I was so relieved to figure out it was just a skinny mirror and not my real body wasting away!”

“Good for you!” she called back in her sweetest of tones. “Real women have curves!”

Great. A skinny mirror–and I had to hear it from Sushi Girl. I went in and looked at myself anyway. There I was, just as I had looked at home…which meant that my mirror at the apartment was ALSO a skinny mirror. I felt surrounded! Ambushed!

How did I let this happen? Where else do I look at myself? The apartment, the office, and the gym. The gym has walls of mirrors and harsh lighting–a reality check if there ever was one. But I’m not one of those girls that wears spandex yoga-fits to work out. My uniform tends to be loose shorts and big t-shirts, hardly grounds for judging one’s figure.

I was a little rattled by the realization that weeks, perhaps months had passed since I’d actually seen my body in its true form. Since purchasing my skinny mirror in mid-July, who knows how many unflattering outfits I’ve unabashedly paraded around in? I’ve been living a lie.

Partly sunny demeanor rapidly turned overcast with an 80% chance of thunderstorms. Perhaps you think this shallow of me. I agree. But it’s fundamentally unsettling to be unable to trust what I see. It’s also quite unnerving to struggle over these trust issues with an inanimate object.

Still, I’ve come to see this self-realization as nothing more than an existential bump in the road. Speaking of mountains vs. molehills, the good news in all of this: my boobs are bigger than I thought! And so, amidst the overcast conditions, there emerges a silver lining.