Images

I've been recognizing lately that I have what I think is an unusual mental hang-up - rather than the mental state that believes a person is heavier than they are (leading/contributing to anorexia and such), I have the opposite. I seem to be of the firm (ha) impression that I am actually slimmer than I am. I look in the mirror, and, while not overjoyed, I feel like I look just fine. And then I see a picture of myself and am completely horrified. It's been happening with some regularity.

Just this past weekend I was at a family wedding, and a relative insisted on some 'headshots' of me. They posted them on social media yesterday. I had thought that I looked well - I had altered a dress so it fit better around my hips and belly, it was an excellent color/pattern that looked great with my eyes, and I had a cute new pair of shoes. Then I saw the pictures.

My sewing skills are distinctly lacking (and the hem definitely hit in the wrong place) - and in the pictures taken I looked tired, bloated, and - in one - thoroughly pregnant. In the mirror I can see my cheekbones. My face is round as an apple in the pictures. My hairstyle, which I generally like pretty well (aren't most of us constantly in some sort of 'growing out' phase?) did me no favors. The dress didn't match my eyes at all, if you can see them under the blobs of flesh, and everything is plump, puffy, dumpy, and, well - unappetizing. I've been telling people for years that I'm not very photogenic - and I've seen wonderful pictures of heavier individuals who are still very attractive and intriguing. Those pictures seemed to show clearly why no one is, or, in recent memory, has been, attracted to me - not only do I not look pretty, I don't even look interesting.

Cameras lie. Mirrors lie. Everything 2D 'lies' - it just can't show you what 3D eyes can. But pictures also remind us of what we did or didn't see, and since we spend increasingly more time online looking at 2D images on a screen, those images correspondingly increasingly come to represent, to present, the 'truth' of what we think we see. It's in some ways similar to the grasp of 'facts' that we are being told is the new reality: even if something is scientifically (factually) true, if enough people believe it isn't than it's not.

Isn't it better, though, for truth to come from the inside of something, from the knowing and being of something, rather than the deceptive appearance of something? I had a hard night, and a hard day, after seeing those pictures, and I have to remember that the truth of me is not found in the pictures of my face or body. I have to remember to keep finding myself interesting, even if no one else ever sees it. How could they, really? That's not what I look like.

So once again I'm planning an exercise program, and cleaning out my kitchen to stock with healthier foods. I've got to say, though - a third of a carton of Ben & Jerry's cleared my headache this morning, even as I was throwing away junk food.

And the up side to all of it - I will never have Trump or any of his supporters ever try to grab or hit on me, which is actually a huge comfort. Silver lining!

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