The mirror that watched me grow

There is a mirror in my house that has probably seen more versions of me than most people ever will. It has watched me stand in front of it as a child, barely tall enough to see my full reflection. It has seen me before school, with my hair hurriedly fixed and my bag hanging from one shoulder. It has seen me trying or clothes, making strange faces,practicing imaginary conversations, and occasionally staring at myself as if the person in the reflection were someone I was still trying to understandthe mirror has never said anything. That is perhaps why I trust it.

People have opinions. They tell you when you have changed ,though sometimes they only means you no longer behave in a way that is familiar to them. They notice your appearance, your achievements. Your failures and the versions of you that you allow them to see. But the mirror has watched everything without asking for an explanation . It has been the child who wanted to grow up the teenager who didn't know she supposed to become, and the person standing here now still trying to understand what growing up was actually supposed to feel like.

When I was younger, I looked into the mirror mostly to see how I appeared to other people. Was my hair right?Did this outfit look good?. Was there something about me that needed fixing?. My reflection often feltvlike a list of things that could be improved. I didn't realize how strange it was to look at myself every day and still spend so little time actually seeing myself.

Years passed, and the person in the mirror kept changing. My facebchanges slowly enough that I never noticed it happening. My expressions changed too . Some disappeared. Others became familiar. There were days when I stood in front of that mirror excited about where life was taking me, and days when I avoided looking at myself for longer than necessary because I didn't particularly want to think about the person I was becoming.

The mirror saw all of it.

It saw me before important days, checking myself one last time before leaving the house. It saw me return after bad days, looking tired and pretending nothing had happened, it saw the silent moments that nobody else witnessed -the ones between being fine in front of everyone and finally being alone again.

Sometimes I wonder what it would say if it could remember aloud. I look into the same mirror now and see someone who is still changing.

That is the strange part, I used to think growing up meant finally becoming a finished version of myself. But the mirror has thought me otherwise.Evwrybyear another version appears and disappears.bSome I am relieved to have left behind.

And though all of it the mirror remains in the same place. It doesn't tell me who I should become . It simply reflects who I am at that moment. Maybe that is enough.

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