Mirror Mirror

I have been fortunate in that I have lived a fairly long life of seventy three years. Over the years I have had many acquaintances, friends, family and even spouses come and go. Not long ago I realized I missed an inanimate object which I deal with daily, which on occasion ranks above all the people I wrote about above in importance.

Mirror Photo courtesy 
Jessie Hart

I am referring to my mirror. Of course I have encountered and lived through many mirrors during my years. Very early in my life, a full length mirror in our long hallway became my best friend.  In fact, during the precious moments I found myself alone in, the mirror became my only friend. I loved it when I could get cross dressed as a girl and was able to walk slowly up and down the hallway thinking all along what a pretty girl I made. The mirror was of no help and added it it's positive affirmations regardless of how bad I really looked. In other words, the mirror was lying to me.

Of course my infatuation with the mirror continued. As I began to explore the world as my feminine self, many times I would push the envelope and try to dress too sexy which became too trashy. One example was when I had a platinum blond wig which was actually too short to cover dark hair on my back. Even though I knew it was happening, the mirror told me I looked so sexy I would certainly present well. Needless to say, I didn't and received way too much negative attention in a bar I went to. I was lucky to make it home without incident and the blond wig was forgotten forever.   

Unfortunately I am a slow learner and my mirror continued to lie to me. I persisted in trying to dress as a teenaged girl in a man's body. I wore my skirts too short as well as my shorts trying to show off my legs which was fine except by doing just that I ignored the fact I had shoulders and a torso which were decidedly un-feminine. The mirror never told me to change my thinking and dress for the overall look and began to blend in responsibly with the rest of the feminine population. It was around this time when I began to separate my self from my mirror and establish new standards. Plus I was increasingly faced with having to meet the public one on one. So essentially all of them became my new mirrors. 

For the longest time, my mirror obsession declined to a point where I had to dread seeing myself in the mirror the first thing in the morning. Some days I looked and saw a vaguely feminine person looking back at me but other days the image screamed same old male and my gender dysphoria would kick in again. I would be in despair thinking even with hormone replacement therapy, I was wasting my time. Then the gender pendulum would swing back again as I rationalized I probably landed somewhere in the middle of my appearance expectations. 

Regardless I wondered why I was so vain anyway. I suppose the vanity goes all the way back to my earliest days of wanting to be and fit in with all the girls. Never stopping to think of any of the negatives involved. Most certainly the girls I so intensely admired had their own issues to deal with.

So even though my mirror has been my life long companion, in reality it has never been my lifelong friend. Often telling me just what I wanted to hear. No matter where they happened to be from my hallway at home to mirrors in mall clothing stores all the way to mirrors behind the bars I frequented, it seems I always needed a mirror as a crutch. To reassure me I was always the feminine person I always wanted to be. Put what label you want on it, cross dresser or novice transgender person I needed the help to exist. These days, except for the occasional dysphoric episode. life with my mirror has settled in a daily small makeup and skin care routine.