Every night before I go to bed, I wash my face and look at myself in the mirror.
Actually, I see myself in mirrors almost eight or ten times a day. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes without even thinking about it. And every time I catch my reflection, something strange happens. My expression changes immediately.
I straighten my face. I fix my hair. I smile a little. I try to look like someone who is doing fine.
I never noticed it before.
But that night was different.
That night, I did not see myself in the mirror.
All I could see was exhaustion. Tired eyes. A face carrying something it had been hiding for too long. It looked unhappy in a way that did not feel like me, yet somehow felt more like me than anything else.
For a moment, I did not know who I was looking at.
And then I started wondering if I had been acting all this time.
But what was I acting? And who was I acting for?
There was nobody else in the room. Nobody watching me. Nobody asking me to smile. Still, the second I saw my reflection, I changed myself.
That was when I realised that the man in the mirror had become my judge.
I had given him that right without even knowing it.
Every time I stood before him, I wanted his approval. I wanted him to see someone confident, happy and in control. So I gave him the face I thought he wanted to see. I smiled, felt good for a few seconds, and walked away.
Then I returned to my table, opened my laptop, and everything went back to what it was.
The tiredness returned. The silence returned. The thoughts returned.
That was when I understood that I had been living a small lie every day.
Not a huge lie. Not one that could destroy a life. Just a tiny, quiet lie repeated every time I faced the mirror.
“I am happy.”
“I am fine.”
“I am doing well.”
But if I was not fine, why could I not tell him?
Why was I scared to face my own reflection? What was I hiding from someone who already knew everything about me?
Maybe the truth was that I never wanted to know.
Not because I was insecure about how I looked. Not because I was ashamed of being tired. I was afraid because I was not ready to face that judge yet. Somewhere inside me, I believed I had not done enough with my life. I had not become the person I kept promising myself I would become.
So how could I ask my reflection to be proud of me?
The glass kept an archive my memory refused to name,
Each borrowed smile returned with interest to the night.
I stood before myself, both witness and accused,
While silence passed the sentence I was too afraid to write.
I have always believed that the person in the mirror is not just a reflection of your face. It is a reflection of your inner self.
And that inner self deserves honesty.
It deserves to be proud of you. It deserves to love the person standing in front of it. But somehow, I had never thought about what happens when your reflection stops believing the performance.
That night, I decided to stop acting.
I began showing him the real me.
I started talking to myself in the mirror. Before a test, I would practise my answers in front of him. Before an interview, I would speak through my nervousness while looking directly into my own eyes. When I was scared, I let him see it. When I was confused, I stopped pretending that I had everything figured out.
I showed him the vulnerable side of me.
And slowly, he stopped judging.
Or maybe he had never judged me at all.
Maybe all this time, I was the one judging him.
The mirror began showing me what my inner self actually wanted me to see. Not a perfect person. Not someone who had achieved everything. Just someone who was still trying. Someone tired, uncertain and unfinished, but still standing there.
Since then, I look at myself whenever something feels important.
Before I leave the house wearing something I love. Before an exam. Before an interview. Before a difficult conversation. Even when I hold something close to my heart and take one of those mirror selfies.
Those pictures mean something different to me now.
They are not always about how good I look. Sometimes they are proof that I was there. That this version of me existed. That I faced myself honestly and did not look away.
Maybe that is what I am trying to say.
You do not need to be ashamed of how you look, how tired you feel, or who you are at this moment. You do not have to perform happiness for your own reflection. You do not have to prove that you have everything under control.
Just talk to the person in the mirror.
Tell them the truth.
Tell them you are scared. Tell them you are tired. Tell them you do not know what comes next. Let them meet the version of you that the rest of the world does not always get to see.
Because your reflection is not waiting to judge you.
It is waiting for you to stop pretending.
And when you finally do, it will show you the person who has been there all along.
The real you.
The vulnerable you.
The unfinished you.
The unapologetic you.
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