Mirror, mirror on the wall, part 2

Angela is still evaluating the effects of a woman looking in the mirror and seeing someone who is older and not familiar. “It’s like a blink,” she says. “You close your eyes and when you open them, you are a different person. You have your life history in that blink.”

The question then becomes, “What do you do next?” I suppose I am one of those women who deny seeing wrinkles, age spots and flabby neck skin. I can’t do anything about those problems so why worry about them?

Angela thinks more deeply than I do. She sees the need to catch up, to merge her mental vision of herself with the physical version she sees in the mirror. “When you come to terms with what you see,” she asks, “does it depress you or does it propel you to move forward because time is getting short?”

I don’t like to think about what she is saying. However, I find myself becoming more productive and getting my projects done faster. Maybe I do feel the sense of urgency that she is feels. I just don’t want to think about it.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

My friend Angela is reading "Water For Elephants" for her book club. She pointed out a passage where the narrator describes how different he looks in the mirror now that he is an old man in his 90s than when he was so much younger.

Angela said she felt the same thing -- a combination of anger, sadness, a questioning of how it had happened and why. She said she felt younger and different on the inside. She was not like the reflection in the mirror. I'll never forget reading a quote from Barbara Bush when she was first lady, and she said something like when she looked in the mirror, she saw a 16-year-old girl getting ready to play tennis, not the reflection shining back at her.

Angela sees the discrepancy between the inner vision of herself and her reflection as an older woman, and she doesn't like it. When I look in the mirror, I see the white thick hairs that sprouted overnight on my upper lip. I don't like what I see, but I don't think about how I've changed physically. I deal with what my reflection shows me.

I understand Angela's angst. I, too, am growing old, and I fight it. Despite our perceptions of ourselves, we both deal with the accumulation of years in the same way -- trying new things and new ways of doing some of our tried and true methods, embracing technology as finances permit, supporting old friends, seeking new ones, and reading and thinking.

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