Is Image Everything?

Seeing your own reflection seems easy, right? In theory, you look in a mirror and you know exactly what you look like.

Or you should. Seeing is believing, they say.

But I find the mirror the least reliable source of information.

Here's my point: Your brain interprets what your eyes see, and your BRAIN is horribly UNreliable. It's unreliable because it's crowded with feelings and beliefs and judgements and opinions and hopes and fears ... You get the idea.

When I was in high school, I thought I was enormous. I thought I was a squishy girl when compared to the other girls. I remember going on a "no food" diet for about a week when Diet Coke was the only sustenance. I got into a tiny pair of baby pink Levi jeans (bought at the JCP in downtown FA, for those of you that remember that) and it resulted in me all but passing out at the Janesville Mall on a Friday night.

Looking back at photos now, I can't see squishy anywhere. I was an athlete, sturdier in build than waif-like girls, but not squishy at all. Proportionate, strong, lean even. In my mind's eye, however, that was not the case.

Early in my career, I also thought I was more than sturdy. I began to hide the flaws I thought were there in "comfortable" clothes. Remember stirrup pants and trapeze tops?

As I got bigger ... truly bigger ... I didn't see big. I saw sturdy. Moving from missy to plus sizes wasn't as arresting as it should have been. They don't make things for "curvy" girls, I reasoned. And, when I looked in the mirror, I saw someone SMALLER than I really was.

I thought I was hiding my real size with decent clothes. That the clothes would help me look smaller, and no one would notice what the overall me really was. I would walk up to the glass doors at work studying my reflection ... was that me or is there distortion?

It wasn't until I saw a photo of myself on my 40th birthday that it really hit me. Who was that person sitting there? My head looked so small in proportion to the rest of me.

I began quizzing Jim when we were out in humanity ... "Do I look bigger or smaller than her? She is shaped like me, right? Is my butt that wide?" I wasn't doing it to fish for a compliment or to get him to lie to me and make me feel better. I was doing it to get my own vision in line with reality. I seriously couldn't tell where I fit on the continuum or what I looked like.

I tried on some summer clothes yesterday, including swimming suits, and had the same mind-bending experience. I'm still convinced I look sort of enormous sometimes. And I know it's not true. But I honestly don't know what the hell I look like.

I know I am--and therefore look--thinner than I did before, but I can really only see it when I compare my drivers license photo from 2 years ago to the one I have today. In them, I look like two different people. In fact, I carry the old one around so I have some tangible proof.

And I still see the old me in the reflection of the glass doors.