An Argument with My Reflection

“When will my reflection show who I am inside?”
- Christina Aguilera

I spend 1-2 hours of each day priming my face and body for public display, and more if I brush shoulders with insecurity and criticality on my way back from a shower. At the conclusion of a week, 7-14 hours have been unwillingly donated to the mirror; the scowl of my reflection is a familiar sight, and my ego alternates between glutton and purger. This morning was no exception.

I have stretched the tour de white trash into a second week. On the phone this morning my mother said, “Are you avoiding responsibility?” I scuffed the borrowed bedroom floor with my toes; my eyes squinted in protection. “Yes,” I said. “I’ll see you when you’re broke.” She hung up the phone, and I see her in my mind: she blows stress into a mug of creamed coffee and leans back in the office chair.
I sat cross-legged in front of the mirror mulling over the early morning maternal conversation. I pointed two fingers at my reflection and smiled, but she only frowned and shook her dripping curls. Drops of water splattered my face. She motioned to the blank canvas of my face and to the curls springing around the soil of my scalp. “Well perhaps I do look a bit awful,” I offered to my reflection. “But,” I hesitated. She dropped her head and reached as if to shake my shoulders, or strangle me.

I took a premature leave from the mirror lest someone discover me in a dialogue with my reflection. Wearing a crown of wet curls and a bare face, I tried to grab the day by her waist and hold her close, but she was slippery and my hands clutched air where her waist should have been. Preoccupation with vanity had greased my fingertips. I stomped up the stairs, my anger underscored with each step. I stood before the mirror with hands on hips.

“Listen here you vain and fickle bitch, I have had about enough of you.” She met my harsh words with innocent eyes, and asked, “What are you on about?” I leaned in close with my knuckles touching hers. The fan whirled behind us stirring the humid heat. Rocking my hips to the opposite side of the room, I slid to my knees and sang, “I want to love you, pretty young thing; you need some lovin’, tender love and care.” I grabbed the hair brush with both hands, spinning in circles; I performed a Michael Jackson rendition. I backed up and wagged my backside, singing, “And I’ll take you there.” She sat with her arms folded. The track fell silent with the clatter of the hairbrush to the floor. I straightened my shirt and sheepishly smiled.

“No, you need to sort yourself out right now,” she countered to my MJ impersonation. I returned to my eye level position and awaited her verbal punishment. “Pick up the brush.” I picked up the handle with my right hand. “Now grab the blow-dryer.” The scream of the air pushed through the filter, the heat resting against my thigh. “Dry your hair,” she commanded.

I understand that it may seem strange that I converse and then later submit to a dominant reflection, but without fail this fictitious exchange begins each day. As I sat with blow-dryer and boar-bristle brush in hands, I looked down, one glance at my left hand, and a second glance at my right. The fan sputtered behind me spitting its sticky mixture in all directions.

“No, I am not going to dry my hair,” a stubborn response to her folded arms and tapping toes. I threw the brush across the floor. It smacked against the wall. I gently placed the $50 blow-dryer down, wise to the consequences of tossing it to meet a fate with the brush. She sat with jaw dropped and claws dug into the floor. With a smirk of defiance I stood and turned my back on the shocked reflection. I strutted through the door, wild curls bouncing down my back, a medusa head of middle fingers.

Disobedience is so much fun.