The Mirror

 The Mirror


I hadn’t realized how much I had changed — or maybe, how quietly I had drifted from the person I once was.

It took someone I barely know, but who felt instantly familiar, to show me.


When I think back to my younger self, I see a boy trying to fit in — somewhere between high school sports and drama club and music rehearsals. I wasn’t the best at any of them, but I loved being part of them. I joined not because I was pushed or needed approval, but because they made me feel alive.


Somewhere along the way, that feeling faded.

When did I become lazy? When did I start waiting for things to happen instead of making them happen?

When did I stop seeking love, and decide that being merely content was enough?

When did I stop looking in the mirror and smiling at who I saw?


I’ve settled, often out of fear. Fear of loss, of rejection, of failure. Fear that life would demand more than I had left to give.

When I was sick — kidneys failing, life uncertain — I stopped reaching out. I didn’t date. I stopped caring about how I looked or moved or felt. I told myself survival was enough.

And maybe it was, then. But survival is not living.


I made choices — sudden moves, abrupt shifts — that I told myself were freedom, but maybe they were flight. I’ve kept moving ever since. No roots. No history. No place.

And yet, I do have a home. A partner. Two dogs whose love is simple and unconditional. A life I built with steadiness and care.


Still, one unexpected connection cracked something open in me — a light through old dust. Joy. Companionship. Curiosity. The ache of wanting more.

It wasn’t about him, not really. It was about what I felt because of him — the recognition of the part of me that still longs, still reaches, still hopes.


Maybe that’s what growing is: realizing that we never lose our younger selves; we just forget where we left them.

And sometimes, if we’re lucky, someone comes along and quietly hands us the mirror again.

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