Reflections in a Three-Way Mirror

In life, we often see things through our own filter of images, both mental and physical. Things may seem fine to us, but as others see us, certain anomolies pop out. Sometimes they are nice enough to not mention them, other times, they get brutally frank and blurt out the awful truth! It is then up to us to deal with that reality as seen from the perspective of our friends and acquaintances.

Two things happened today that brings a terrible reality to me that I have been avoiding for quite some time. This reality was something I've dealt with before, but I hoped to have put aside as a life issue that needed no attention right now. The reality is the tale of the tape measure as it encircles my mid section!

This morning, I dressed for church in new clothing, and although I convinced myself that that new size that I needed to get the skirt zipped was because "they just cut things small", it really was because I needed that much fabric to go around my middle section. And to top off the entire indignity of wearing such an awful size, I forgot to take that size strip off the back of my skirt. I was parading through the church going to recieve communion, and the cute redhead in the back row of our choir tapped me and mentioned that "the size tag is still on your skirt"! I felt back near my gluteus MAXIMMMUUUUSSSS, and was horrified to find it indeed was there, publicizing to the entire church just how many candy bars and french fries had been consummed lately! You can run, but you can't hide! Was there room under the pew to hide? Sorry, that wasn't an option.

The next thing that brings this whole issue to the light of day came about in my trip to Macy's. They advertised another ubiquitous sale of theirs, and I took the bait. So I had to investigate what wonderful bargains they were offering. It was my first vacant Sunday afternoon in a long time, and my Macy's charge card was growing stone cold after much neglect.

I found a few things to try on, and in the first set of dressing rooms, they have one mirror in each stall for you to check things out. OK, I could live with what I saw, and I found one outfit that would do. Not satisfied that I had unearthed every possibility, I combed every rack in all the ladies' departments, and finally found a few more bargains that were worth a try. I went into the big giant size dressing room to try them on, the ONE WITH THE THREE WAY MIRROR! Was that ever a mistake. Here, in the light of cold, blue fluorescent light was the unmistakeable evidence of my past sins of gluttony and sloth! Every Milky Way bar showed, and every french fry was evidenced by another bump of cellulite. Months of sitting around showed how wide things become when you sit on them constantly. I know now what those people seeing me parade through church with the size tag on my butt must have been thinking, IT'S TOO PAINFUL FOR ME TO PUT INTO WORDS!

So now, this is the jolt of reality that will send me back daily to the treadmill, elliptical and the streets around my house. I'm throwing the Milky Way bars in the trash, and I went to the produce store for fruits and veggies. I've thawed out the skinless chicken and will cook a low cal meal for dinner. Those cute little ice cream snacks that I bought will have to be for the grandkids, no more for grandma! I hope that the pants I bought today (to make it possible for me to dress for work and not split a seam or destroy a zipper) will soon be falling off.

One can only hope.

Is all of life like that? We see ourselves one way, but the reality of what others see is not quite the same as we envision. Do we really want to know the truth?