I Feel You, Mulan.
- The Undefeated
- Oct 26, 2016
- 3 min read
Reflections are strange things.
There are songs, poems, art, and 😉 blogs.
Reflection tells us how we are perceived but it also represents our feelings about ourselves.
In all honesty, I think I'm a pretty amazing person. I think I have perspective, character, resilience, and kindness that sets me apart. But circumstances, experiences, and pain warp my reflection sometimes and I end up not being able to see myself clearly. I end up seeing myself as a shadowed figure instead of seeing resistance to despair etched into me.
I was looking at the river today and looked down to see my reflection but was greeted by my silhouette instead of my rosy cheeks.
Often I see myself as a shadow of who I once was. I see the outline of a warrior, but I can't make out her features. I see the curvature of cheeks that have laughed, but not the streams of the salty proof of laughing until I cried.
At the beginning of the year I was very much the same person I am now, only I saw my reflection then and had no appreciation of or for it. I saw my size, the roundness of my cheeks, redness of my cheeks, sarcasm, and a lot of the things that make me who I am as negatives.
There are moments when I’ll get a glimpse of who I once was and for a few minutes I don’t have pain and am laughing and enjoy the enjoyment.
But the very fact that those moments are few and far between can often leave me feeling like a shadow of the person I really am.
All of this talk about reflections makes me think of Mulan and her song and how it really fits how I’ve felt about my reflection.
Reflection:
“Look at me
I will never pass for a perfect bride
Or a perfect daughter
Can it be
I'm not meant to play this part?”.
In many people’s opinions I can’t live up to the hopes and dreams my parents had for me when they had me and therefore cannot be a perfect/good daughter.
“Now I see
That if I were truly to be myself
I would break my fam'ly's heart”.
So who I am wouldn’t break my family’s heart. But who I become at the hands of pain usually does.
“Who is that girl I see
Staring straight
Back at me?
Why is my reflection someone
I don't know?”.
I feel like who I am these days is such a small part of who I am actually. It makes me sad even on the good days to feel more like myself, but for so little time.
“Somehow I cannot hide
Who I am
Though I've tried
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?”
I tried for a long time to hide my pain. I was being torn apart on the inside and people would say they didn’t believe me or that I looked fine. That’s another aspect of this. I know I’ve told you about my pain, but unless I am in so much pain there’s absolutely no way I can hide it, then and only then will you really see my pain.
You may wonder why I hide it, but that is for another time.
I see my reflection in my photography, in the hearts of my girls that I have cried with, in the loving texts/emails/phonecalls from friends, and in the loving support my family has for me day in and day out.
My reflection these days is more of a shadow than anything else and honestly I think pain is at fault for that.
But I am happy to find the echoes of myself in the lives and hearts of those I love.
Sincerely Yours,
The Undefeated
Comentarios