I have heard people say “the mirror has a thousand faces.” growing up, i did not understand the meaning, let alone the truth in this statement. see, early on in life, i had been convinced that whoever i saw when i looked in a mirror was my exact replica. but as i got older, there are days when i barely recognized who i saw when i looked into a mirror. and i mean this both literally and metaphorically? there is a time i had not seen my reflection in so long( at least, not consciously) that when i finally did, i gasped. but what i really want to talk about is those days when i hated the reflection, then i would hate myself for hating my reflection because deep down i knew that i did not hate my reflection, it is the being that stood in front the mirror that i could not stand. so, like every normal human being, i looked for someone to put the blame on, and i found the being in the mirror. so i lied to myself that i disliked the “fact” that i wasn’t pretty enough, or how my ears were too small, or how beautifully long my eyelashes are. or how clear my eyes are. but there are days i woke up and in those few minutes before my destructive spirit of self-hate caught up with me, i would stare at my reflection and i loved what i saw. and in those moments i would allow myself to be brutally honest with myself and admit that i loved my reflection, it is me that i hated. i hated how my life had fallen into a routine. how i woke up every morning to do the same stupid, destructive shit i did yesterday. how in the process of adding days into my life, i had lost the life in my days. how i had lost feeling. how i felt so numb and empty, it hurt.how nothing was ever motivating enough or good enough. how i lost things and people even before i found them. so i became a machine. there are days i could get through a conversation with someone without listening to them. i knew when to fake a smile, a frown or force a laugh. but one can only fake so much, till you get tired. and it is mornings like these, that i cried so hard i could not breathe. it is those random moments when i would get a text from my best friend saying he missed me, and i would lie and text back saying i missed him too when the truth is i was too invested in myself and lack of emotion i hardly thought about anyone else. and a lot more honestly, i wanted to ask him, ” how do you do that, just how do you feel?” and it is nights like these i would laugh myself to sleep because i knew that if i ever started crying, my lungs could never handle all the emotionlessness i wanted to breathe out; all the emotion i needed to breathe in. and so yeah, it is in those days when i looked into the mirror and didn’t know who i saw; how rapidly i was changing and becoming someone i hated. how it was not because, i was incapable of feeling(actually, i am a very emotional person.), but how slowly i had accepted mediocrity, how i took too much crap from people, how i no longer had the active willingness to better myself, how i was settling for second best, how i almost believed every belittling, mean things people said about me. how i was letting people mistreat me and take advantage of me. how i had gotten used to it, it didn’t feel wrong. and along with that, i lost my sense of right, my desire to be happy or even let myself feel good.

as a kid, i knew that the only way to taste something was to put it in your mouth and let it touch your tongue. but, leave it to life and the passing of time to unlearn simple yet true lessons. you have not been confused until you can taste blood in your mouth,yet no part of your flesh is bleeding. simply put, life taught me that pain is not something only the brain and nerves recognized, something only the heart felt. there some things in life that are just too painful. and even when you are afflicted with numbness, pain will find a way to make you feel. even if it means tasting blood in your mouth. it is those mornings when you intend to waste your days in bed and pretend not to have anything useful to do, that you will wake up with the taste of blood in your mouth, and those tears you are trying so hard not to shed will look like blood, and the air you breathe will feel like blood. it is those mornings that everything is so bloody that you will have your wake up call, literally. it is those days that you will appreciate the beauty of feeling; the irrelevance of that thing you call pride; the reason you will not admit you miss someone. it is in mornings like those that you learn just how important it is to mean it when you say you love someone. and it is in mornings like these, that i learnt that occasionally saying i love you and meaning it won’t make me choke to death.

and this is for everyone who has experienced just how painful it is to lose feeling, and in a huge part, lose yourself.