Confession - I thought Mom was loopy, thinking that throwing away a mirror would be a way to strengthen our courage muscle. She meant metaphorically, but it still seemed a tad whacko. But the older I get, the more it make sense.
Even the sharpest snappiest sveltest 60+ year old is going to look at least a teensy bit frayed compared to his or her younger self. Mom knew people who grieved their youth, whose focus seemed to be on halting, as best they could, the impact of the passing years. They didn't just have mirrors in the house of their soul, they were like fun house mirrors that distorted & twisted out of shape. She knew people who looked in the mirror & saw everything they weren't any more & mourned.
It was sad, knowing people who refused to go out in public anymore because they didn't look the way they did years before. There are people in my own life who only order take-out because they don't turn heads anymore when they walk into restaurants. They define self-loathing. What a sorry waste. No courage.
Mom knew people like that, but not many. Most of her friends had long ago banished such mirrors from their soul. And she even came to banish the one that reduced her good qualities while it magnified her bad ones.
Throw away her actual mirror? Nevah! She could ignore the wrinkles, the "saggy baggy" body (as she laughingly described it), the grey hair. But go out without her lipstick? Nevah! That, for her, would be close to being naked in public!
Core courage calisthentics: locate all the mirrors that distort, lift them off or pick them up, and THROW THEM OUT. Accept that you are who you are!
Think about those friends of Mom's, the ones who wouldn't go to Friday Supper or church, to play cards with friends & especially not out in the bright light of day to watch a grandson pitch. What a waste. Don't be one of them. Ditch the mirrors, just be who you are. My mother & her friends didn't just accept themselves as older women - they made it something worth celebrating!
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