On a more personal note… sometimes one looks in the mirror, and what one sees is not what one sees in one’s head. And this distortion isn’t made of fabric or hair – it’s made of flesh.
I don’t simply mean what Heinlein had one of his characters say about the Rodin sculpture (https://vanemden.com/books/heaulmiere.html), because aging and accident are truth, and the discerning eye can see past them into the heart. Here I am referring to the results of neglect and a lack of self-maintenance.
Although I have an artist’s eye to draw out the beauty within my clients, and nothing gives me greater joy, I realized that I am doing my clients a disservice by not working with the woman in the mirror, and moreso, that the woman in the mirror did not mesh with the woman in my head.
How can I urge you to submit to makeover if I won’t do the same?
And so, likewise this time of quiet is a time where I am making myself over… starting from the ground up. Because this body in the mirror, the raw materials that I am working with, I’ve let it take the brunt of the hard times, the tired times – and I haven’t given any attention to recapturing health after the storms passed. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see me.
My spirit is not reflected in my flesh. What you see is a record of what has gone before – and yes, that’s truth in its way. But it doesn’t reflect who I am today.
There’s a hard truth.
Another hard truth is that it takes work and commitment to get the outsides to match the insides. You can re-do your wardrobe in a day, you can submit to a makeover in a weekend – but clearing the mess of years? That’s not fast work.
So. I’m working on my outsides right now. The Truth *will* out.
