Reflections.

Well hello, it has been a while.  In that while there has been a lot of things happening.  So I thought I would creep back into the wonderful world of writing, and reading, and sharing, and using too many ‘ands’ in a sentence with something that you will all know as being true to me.  Some pure, raw honest life!

The last 12 months or so have been a whirlwind of experiences, emotions, and learning curves.  Some of them have been good, some memorable, some are not going to be forgotten quickly enough, and some will be shared for they are the ones which will be the gems which will light the way for many many dark days and nights ahead.

“every little piece of ourselves tells part of our story”

Butterflies With Rainbows

In the last year I have also seen many therapists, coaches, support workers, general busy bodies, and lets not forget the know it alls who ‘think’ they can ‘fix’ everyone on the first handshake in any busy spaces.  One thing that most of these people have in common is that at some point they have said “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you, You’d see just how amazing you really are.”

The thing with that phrase is that in order to see yourself you need to look at your own reflection.  Reflections mean mirrors, I don’t like mirrors very much.  It isn’t the mirror I dislike, I think that they they are in fact very lovely items, they make rooms look so much bigger, they can also look amazing with lights and little messages on.  However the image that I see in them when I look in them is what I have issues with, it isn’t what I want to see, or what I think I should see.  So that’s where we are starting this crazy little journey.

Sometimes we need to face facts, to stand butt naked in the mirror and just see ourselves for what we are.   Every little lump, bump, bruise, scar, stretch mark, wrinkle, muffin top, everything.  Why? Because every little piece of ourselves tells part of our story, a piece of where we have been, what we have experienced.  A tragedy, an adventure, a holiday, a love, a loss, a past.

Yet it doesn’t matter how hard we stare, how much we long for it, look for it, search for it in the reflection we see staring back at us, the one thing we will never ever see a single glimpse of is what is yet to come.

For someone like me, I have had to break free from the grasps of a life of constantly being told what I can and cannot do, what it is I am capable of doing, what I should be doing, what I most definitely cannot do, and what is not allowed to be done by me.  That being said, when it came to being on my own I naively thought that things would be easy and I would be able to manage every day things on my own.  Life would be simple even, yet often I find myself screaming in my head “Someone just tell me what to do”.

When did adulting become so damn hard?  Or was it always this hard and I was just never allowed to experience it in its full glory?  We (my littlest rainbows and I) are coming up to our first year where I have been their sole provider.  Responsible for everything.  Now this is a scary things because when I stand and look in the mirror, the person looking back at me looks the same.  Yet I know that person has changed in so many ways.  

You see physically the image image remains the same, but now that person knows how to do many more things, such as read a gas and electric meter, can now take her car for a service and an MOT, knows how to be responsible for rent, council tax, and all the household bills that before this time would have never even have given a second thought too.

Reflections can be deceptive, they can trick us into thinking things are something they are not.  A reflection is simply a picture of a surface, but underneath that surface, or even behind it there is something completely different lurking.  Something much bigger, better, darker, brighter, happier or even scarier!

The thought of making myself stand in-front of a mirror, forcing myself to stare at my reflection to even try and figure out what it is that these other people see fills me with a sense of fear, of dread, of utter panic.  Why?  Because I know I won’t see the same things.  No one ever sees the same in themselves as other people do.  We aren’t supposed to.  We never will.  If we did it would be a very boring world, the mystery about ourselves wouldn’t be there, and there would never be the motivation to just keep going with anything in life.

Instead I may catch a glimpse, and see the same person as I see every single time.  The same lines, the same tired eyes, maybe a few more grey hairs, even some added tan lines if I am lucky.  Instead I will know that there have been many hurdles overcome that others won’t have seen, I will see someone who has revisited old memories and made peace with them.  I will see a person who can now feel less guilty at being the one who says ‘No’ when life gets too much and we need to take a break.  I see a mum who now has the confidence to stand up for her babies and help them get heard in a noisy world.  These changes can’t been seen in a reflection but they are there.   

“when I stand and look in the mirror, the person looking back at me looks the same.  Yet I know that person has changed in so many ways”

Butterflies With Rainbows.

To many people I meet, I look the the exact same.  I am not. I think differently, I react differently, and most of all my outlook is different.  That doesn’t mean to say I don’t have my off days because I most certainly do.  I just choose to handle them differently these days.  The last year has been a year of changes, just the type that have been under the surface.

So the next time you think that nothing has changed, that you still look like the exact same person as you did 6 months ago, a year ago, two years ago even.  Look through the reflection.  A surface image is just that.  The surface, it is what happens underneath where no one can see except for you that the biggest changes happen, the best thing about those changes is that because they are from the inside, they are the ones that last.  

The reflection of a tree shows only one side, knowing the story, the journey is hidden beneath the surface.