when you look in the mirror?

I am in touch with an old boyfriend. My first real, and serious boyfriend actually. Nothing harmful or scandolous though truth be told, he seems to want to re-kindle something. However, he lives 2000 miles away, I am married (albeit unhappily) but perhaps what makes our casually texting safest of all – I have no interest in him. We broke up those many, many years ago for a reason and this isn’t a Hallmark movie. And that reason – I was no longer in love with him – will not be erased with the passage of time.

Still, he likes to check in once awhile, exchange a couple texts, go dormant for a few weeks and then pop back into my life, so to speak. He can be very complimentary, telling me how beautiful I am “still” but I tell him I think he is looking at me now through “old,” nostalgic eyes.

When he looks at me, I think he sees the “girl” I was. The girl who is nearly 30 years younger, 50 pounds lighter and, most significant of all, the girl who’s heart was free and whose soul was still alive.

When I look in the mirror, I see a woman who has “let herself go.” A woman who is overweight, no longer cares about the clothes she puts on each morning and whose face bears the weight of an unhappy marriage. WHen I look in the mirror, I see a tired, worn woman who who has lost her passion for living.

Who is “right?”

Which perception is “acurate?”

Well, there really is no right or wrong and only one perception matters:

Mine.

Because the truth is, the mirror only reflects back to us…

What we tell it to.