The Mud & the Mirror

I was too much so I became less. And when I was less, then less wasn’t enough.

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I erased myself for a man.

By the time he was done with me, I was unrecognizable. My clothes were baggy, my hair was mousy and I had gone back to my nearly natural state. I didn’t like my natural state much. Always thought I was too plain looking—too boring.

I stopped getting my nails done. Stopped getting lip injections. Even stopped bleaching the roots of my hair. A thousand add-ons stripped, until I was left with a face I hadn’t seen in a very, very long time.

Her.

The twenty year old me. She looked a bit older than twenty, I’ll admit. But I knew exactly who she was. Maybe it wasn’t that I was unrecognizable, but that I had become unfamiliar with my true essence.

It started out with him picking apart my fake eyelashes, telling me he preferred my natural ones. I’m thinking,

How the fuck would you even know what my natural ones look like? You’ve never seen them!

I took them off anyway. Started wearing mascara. Albeit, it was a nice change. He had me take out the hair extensions too. Soon I realized I preferred my natural hair. Yeah, it was an inch shorter, but I really didn’t need the extensions in the first place.

In my defense, I didn’t just roll over and accept my fate. Because who the hell is this guy to pursue me, just to turn around and criticize how I presented myself? I thought, if I was honest about what I’d like him to change, our relationship probably wouldn’t see another week.

He almost never hit the gym. In his free time, he was usually playing a video game or lying around the house. I’m ambitious. I enjoy being productive. I like to take care of my physical body. There were times I’d attempt to motivate him, but they didn’t quite land. However, I got into this relationship accepting him for who he decided he was.

I like to think I’m a pretty open-minded woman. The dumbest people I’ve ever met were narrow thinkers and hard headed. Not a thought behind those eyes, really. And if there is a thought, it’s one singular thought. I’m willing to take suggestions and criticism, as long as I believe it might be a benefit. I rocked the bleach blonde and 18 millimeter eyelashes long enough. What’s wrong with a good old, humbling change?

I figured, maybe I’m responding from a place of ego. Maybe his suggestions would be some of the best I ever considered. I wouldn’t know unless I tried. Plus, if it would make him happy, that would make me happy.

Yeah, I know. Shut up about it.

I became accustomed to my new look. Or my old look. Not sure what to call it, really. He seemed more secure, and I wasn’t totally disgusted by the natural state of things. Pun intended.

There was a point where I didn’t see it as something taken from me, but something given back. My natural hair color is gorgeous. Looking in the mirror, I realized I didn’t need to pack the makeup on. Just enough would do. I actually looked better with less.

My life has been rocky. And I mean, falling off a mountain, hitting every rock on the way down until the earth gave way and dropped me into the depths of hell kind of rocky. I crawled my way out a few times. Sometimes a poor soul would reach their hand out to help me, just for me to unintentionally drag them down. I got out though. Every. Fucking. Time.

A lot of battles happen down in the depths of hell. You learn to scrap a little. Your intuition is forged into a blade and tucked into the side of your panties. It pokes at you from time to time, reminds you that you can bleed when you get too cocky. And the rest of your innocence is scraped from your soul like the extra bit of grease on the grill. You watch it get flicked in the garbage like filth, but the kitchen is hot and you don’t have time to stand over the waste basket and mourn it. All you know is if you don’t keep going, you might die, or worse. I got to a point where I learned to kick my own ass so good, I could nearly laugh when somebody else did it for me. Like when you tickle yourself, you don’t really feel much, but when someone else does it, it makes you laugh.

Something like that.

I’ve learned to laugh about things. When things get serious enough, they almost become funny. And you get a confidence from being able to see it that way. There’s a certain air about you after you’ve learned to eat shit for awhile and can still laugh about it with a blood stained tongue.

I can really deal you a hand you won’t be able to play. This is not because I’m smart, it happens on accident. If you follow astrology, I’m Jupiter dominant. If you know, you know. And there’s a certain walk you acquire when you realize the air smells better from up here—when you stand taller and stop looking down.

He wanted to take that from me. Changing my physical appearance wasn’t enough. He wanted to eradicate me. That’s how it felt. That’s how it feels now.

He wanted to take my hard earned strut. My loud mouth. My boisterous personality. And you know, I curse a little. He wanted to steal the word fuck right from my big beautiful mouth. This man wanted to strip me down until I was this meek little mouse who wandered around the earth staring at the concrete and hunched over like Quasi-fucking-modo.

And holy shit, I did. I became all of those things. I was too much so I became less. And when I was less, then less wasn’t enough.

Near the end of it, my best friend took one look at me and was completely mortified. He didn’t even recognize me anymore.

“You look like a battered woman who lost herself.”

And sadly, he was right.

By the end of the relationship, I was so stressed out, I was having a period every other week, developing deep, cystic acne and my hair was falling out so badly, my drain clogged every few days.

Finally, my boyfriend at the time said something to me he could never take back and that was pretty much it for me. I didn’t even have to try to detach. He did it for me. Like a tumor cut right from my side.

And no, I won’t tell you what he said in this article. It’ll be in the next one though.

We were broken up for about a month and a half before I threw myself into the dating scene again. I really didn’t have much attachment to him left and honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t try to date sooner. There wasn’t much else I could have done. I tried for a long time to make it work. I tried everything. There wasn’t any doubt in me knowing I could finally move forward.

Then I met him.

Him.

He was perfect. Everything I wanted. He saw me. He saw everything I was, and everything I could be. The child in me finally peeked her little head out of the dark hole she’d been hiding in until she felt the sunshine warm her face and her blue eyes sparkling in the light. You’ve never seen someone soften so quickly. Like sugar dissolving under the tongue or butter melting under a hot knife. It was immediate and effortless and a little provocative.

My back straightened. I remembered how to stand tall. I needn’t look down because he was staring right at me, right on my level. He met me right where I was at. Not a single part of me felt the need to fight to be heard. And you know what happened? I spoke like a mouse. Not because I was meek, because I felt safe.

There’s quite a difference in being criticized into a shell of yourself versus feeling safe enough to roll on your back and show your tummy.

And I looked him in the face, all I saw was a mirror reflecting the most beautiful version of myself I’d ever seen. He looked at me like I was the only thing worth seeing. If we’re being honest, I think he saw the beauty in me I had never even had the privilege of meeting.

It didn’t work out. I wish it had.

But by the end of that relationship, I saw a woman with a settled nervous system, who just needed someone else to reflect her worth back to her. A woman who deserves to be loved properly.

And that’s the kicker isn’t it? Needing someone else to mirror it back to you. That’s a dangerous game. When the wrong person holds up a mirror and your identity is easily compromised, you can become anything—including a shell of yourself.

So what happens when someone isn’t holding up the mirror anymore? Who do you become?

Well, a woman without a mirror. I’ve decided I like makeup. Not too much. The eyelash clusters are still a thing, but I’m rocking the 14 millimeters instead of the 18. I’ve realized that most of the time, I don’t give a shit enough to argue with people. My peace is a privilege that I’ll be coddling like a baby at my breast. I’ve decided that if a man or anyone else isn’t adding something positive or subtracting something negative from my life, I don’t want them in it.

I’ll be keeping the word fuck as an accessory by the way.

There’s an Emperor archetype inside of me that doesn’t make battle plans because he somehow just wins on accident. There’s an Empress in me that doesn’t accept male callers unless the gifts they’ve bestowed at my feet are worthy of my attention.

I might flirt for funsies though.

Depending on who you are, you will get one of these variations. A strong sense of self is important, as is an open mind. You have to find the middle ground.

Your mind shouldn’t be a river, carrying anything that’s thrown in it. It shouldn’t be like a rock where nothing can get in either. Let your mind be mud, where you decide what sticks.

I am the mud and the mirror. So tell me, do you like what you see?