I would like to be someone else. A different version of me, with the same sweet, handsome husband; same beautiful baby girl... I want to see something different when I look in the mirror.
I hate mirrors, because all I see in them are my flaws. I see the uncooperative hair that hangs to my shoulders, limp as a dishrag and red as a stoplight, thanks to a poor dye choice on my part.
I see the high forehead, a reminder that I was born with too much cerebrospinal fluid. For years, I believed my mom when she told me that it was because I was so intelligent. When I found out the reality, that the plates of my skull had expanded under the pressure of CSF, I cried. I was 22.
I see the left eye that crosses if I am the least bit tired, that everyone who meets me points out at least once, as though they are the first to notice.
I see the discolored crack in my front tooth where it was repaired after part of it was knocked out.
I see the moles on my neck that I hate, even though I can't find the courage to have them removed.
I see the weight that I gained when, as a curvy 15-year-old, old men started acting like stupid boys, and boys my age didn't know how to act.
I see the scars... some from lifesaving surgeries, one from the c-section that gave me Charlotte (I love that one!) and others that I inflicted upon myself, angry that I wasn't the girl I wanted to be.
For the last 20 years, I have hated what I see when I look in the mirror. That's no way to live, and that's no way to teach my daughter how to love herself. For the next thirty days, I will post something every day that I love about myself. Maybe by the end of June, I'll start seeing the girl my husband fell in love with, or the young woman my mother-in-law loves as her own. In any case, I hope I start to see someone I can like a little more.
Day 1: I adore my baby girl. She is the best part of me, and every day I am amazed that I made this beautiful little human being in partnership with my husband and Heavenly Father.
