The_Woman_In_The

September 14, 2001
I still look in the mirror every chance I get.
This time, however, it's not to see if I lost weight, but because the person looking back at me never fails to startle me.
I don't recognize this face!
The face I have looked at for 48 years is gone. Instead, a woman with wide blue eyes quizically looks back at me.
She has emerging cheekbones which I think will be quite pretty if she lost a few pounds.
I study her face for a long time, looking for some vestige of me - but I am elusive.
Her chin is solid, firm, determined and bears little resemblance to my chin - or should I say chins? And it appears a little too long.
Her neck is just beyond slender. A few more pounds and she might have one of those necks I always admired. My neck is short and squat - and it appears as if my head is directly attached to my shoulders.
But when I look at other obese people I see that for the most part, they too don't have necks.
My comfort zone is slightly askew, and I feel at odds with myself, as if I am in the wrong skin.
What if I don't like what I look like when I am at goal?
What then???
My eyes move down and assess the body of this stranger. I see she is built like a boy. Her hips are slender, and she lacks a waist. Her breasts are compact and her arms and legs are long.
I long for the heaviness of my own breasts - my previous link with sexuality. Despite the rolls of fat I felt my femininity - I had breasts!
I turn to the side - the woman in the mirror could use some bummies, I see. Those padded things my mother used to stuff into her own girdle to give the appearance of rounded glutteal muscles.
I reach back with a hand and help a sagging buttock achieve an rounded, pleasing apple shape. To my deep mortification my husband and the dog catch me in the act.
I pretend I am merely scratching.
The woman in the mirror mischieviously smiles back at me after they leave.
And that's when I fully comprehend, that woman is me!
That woman is ME!
I consider this for a long time, and come to a satisfying conclusion.
No matter how my body changes I am still me. Compassionate, I hope. Good-humoured. Funny, emotional and yes, mischievious.
I am not lost, I have not changed. I have metamorphacized. I am a butterfly!
I as I leave the bathroom I take one last look at the woman and decide I like what I see.