Bloated Zombie

Photo Credit: Dextar FX via Compfight cc

Have you ever had one of those "lucid moments"? Where you look through all the chaos and distortion of perception for one second, and see things how they really are? I had one yesterday, and it was really unsettling.

We were up North, visiting my in-laws, and I was placed on a tech-support task that had been waiting for me to come visit. (We need to visit more often.) While on hold with a tech rep talking about their balky modem, I kept walking back and forth in front of a pair of mirrors - on one wall was a mirror on top of a dresser, on the wall to its right was a full-length mirror. Now, for a very long time, I have avoided looking at full-length mirrors - I tend to subconsciously avert my gaze whenever I am around them. But something (maybe boredom, I was on hold) made me look. It was pretty startling.

Directly in front of me was the scarred face and broad shoulders that I glance at every morning when brushing my hair. To my right, in the full-length mirror, was that profile glued on top of a sagging chest, a hugely expanded waistline, and an ass that looked like a beanbag chair. I was suddenly startled - Is this really what people see when they look at me?

I have seen pictures of myself (though I try to avoid those as well), but seeing this in the moment was somehow different. I felt like someone had taken my face and put it on a bloated, decomposing zombie body from a video game. I can look at the photo of myself from our hike a few weeks ago and think "I don't want to look like that." Somehow, yesterday, seeing it in shifting perspective made it real to me: I do look like that. Like, all the time.

I admit that I am now dreading my weekly check-in with the scale later today. We had a LOUSY week last week, what with car accidents, and insurance adjusters, and not having enough to buy a car (then finding enough) and whatnot, and our eating reflected it. We'll get back on that horse this week, of course, but I know the numbers aren't going to be good for today. I am just now suddenly understanding why all the friends and loved ones who I thought were going to be surprised when I told them about gastric surgery instead nodded their heads and said: "Of course you're going to do that." Like they had all been waiting for me to arrive at this conclusion for quite a while. A bit sobering, being the last one to the "self-realization" party.

Avoiding Mirrors For REAL Now,

- Hawkwind