PUNK PROSE: The Girl in the Mirror by Anonymous

I think to myself,  

“I know how to make my eyes sad, brown, and heartfelt, with longing.”  

I look in the mirror. I think about what got me here, in the bathroom of a grand ballroom in a camp made by some rich Orthodox Rabbi from Lakewood, NJ. How did I get inside the bathroom and away from the Passover Seder? Why am I celebrating Passover with a bunch of acquaintances of mine from some religious Jewish camp I attended over the summer? Right.  

Drunk, sad, and lonely, I sat at Passover Seder in a camp in upstate New York and I did not belong there -- not at the Passover seder, not here in this world. Instead of the Hebrews who found their faith, their G-D, and home, I was like Joseph, who was thrown into a well by his brothers and sold off into slavery. Oh, how much I wanted to leave and run away from everything!  

Never did I think I was the one who abandoned anyone. But, I did! I never ran away. I just listened to the girl in the mirror and believed that I was not worth a goddamn thing. So, I shut everyone out. I abandoned everyone first. I stopped talking and started drinking. I let myself be swayed by insults hurled while staring at the girl in the mirror.  

The girl in the mirror is one lucky person. She gets to stay in the mirror avoid her family, friends, acquaintances, Jewish magistrates, and more. The girl in the mirror is immune to all the insults I threw at myself while looking at the mirror. The girl in the mirror doesn’t get hurt. I get hurt while the girl in the mirror gets to hide. And, anytime I look into a reflective surface, I see the girl in the mirror and think:  

Am I good enough?  

Am I worth the trouble? 

Does my family love me? 

Does my family want me?  

If I disappeared, would anyone even notice?   

Would anyone care to notice that I am gone?   

Barney Stinson was right. The most awesome person who lives is the person in the mirror because the person in the mirror gets to evade all this self-doubt and hatred about themselves. But, still, besides all the hatred and self-doubt, I would not want to change places with the girl in the mirror.  

I’ll live with my self-doubt until I can find a way to turn my self-doubt into self-love, self-worth, and an all-compassing self-awareness.  

It might be better to be a whole person out in the world with love and hatred than to live half a life as a reflection of your worst qualities. 

I wouldn’t want to be the girl in the mirror any more than I would want to be a person who thinks badly of herself and finds solace in a bottle of Bartenura.  

--Rebecca Blyakher