facing my mother’s mirrors…

My mother once asked me to write a poem with her.  I was eight.

She said, “Let’s call it “Mirrors.”

How long has it been since I have actually looked in one?

Ages.

Yesterday I put on some mascara.

I went to an appointment and the desk clerk said, “hello beautiful.”

Which I thought was strange because beautiful is not how I feel at all.

A makeover.

I need one.

Seriously.

For one thing, it would be nice to be able to do the kinds of things I used to do, like say go to a salon.

I was remembering the year I turned 36.

The stylist gave me this cut so that it would be easier to just go on th types of trips we took into the wild and I didn’t have to think about my hair — out of the shower and go, you know?  Scrunched curls.

Mirroring is something in object relations — if you don’t have good mirroring from a parent it’s not a good thing.  I didn’t.

In fact there was no mirroring at all, because my mother was very narcissistic.

What she needed was a mirror.

Over the years she gave me many physical mirrors.  I have them around here.  This is one.

I think the progressed moon deal is telling me to look back at the last 27 years.  Where was the mirror?  And I see there wasn’t one.  Pretty hard to come to terms with that, now.

I see how I neglected my own needs here for his, and this went on for years.  Even choosing what I want to do is very hard on a daily basis.  It’s hard to eat.  But I am glad I withdrew from that anti-d because I did not need that.  Eating and doing yoga will be more of a help.  Yesterday, the therapist said, “do you think he is going to listen to you after all these years?”

I guess not.

That anti-d made me so think of offing myself.  Poison.  That is what those pills are.  Really.

I guess I have to rebuild whatever self-esteem of mine that has been shredded day by day.

Anyway, I remember the night I got that makeover.  I had gone and gotten the best skin care stuff ever — Clarins.  I had my hair done, my nails.  It was my birthday and I really wanted a baby.  It rained that night.  The roof was leaking in one room and he came home from work — the plaster had fallen.  For years that room stayed like that.  I didn’t have a birthday that year.

It got to be that I couldn’t invite anyone over because of that ceiling.

It’s fixed now, replastered.

A little electrical is all it needs.

The house needs so little, really.  But sitting here with it now is bringing back all the memories.

That night, that ceiling, this mirror.

My mother came for Thanksgiving that year.  She looked up at the ceiling and she didn’t say a word except I could tell by her eyes.