holding up the mirror

O wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

An foolish notion:

What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,

An' ev'n devotion! - Robert Burns

I got a terrible shock a couple days ago.  Someone talked to me, and in just a few short sentences, gave me, as Robert Burns so lightly called it: a 'gift.' I saw myself as others see me.

Do you suppose that most of us have a narrative set up for our lives? Within that narrative, there is a character-description of the hero, or in my case heroine. I had a narrative. In it, I was a delightful individual, infinitely relatable. Perhaps I was even adorable in my own sweet, chaotic way. 

Markups, as though in fat red sharpie, run throughout that narrative now.  I didn't fare well in the hands of an editor.

I am reminded of the scene in Barbra Streisand's "The Mirror Has Two Faces" when Jeff Bridges gives Rose that same gift. He didn't only hold up a mirror. He stood Rose on a scale. Cruel.

But, I also remember that Rose dusted herself off, took the bitter truth as she saw it, embraced it, and rewrote her narrative so that she was even too good for Peirce Brosnan in the end.  That is inspirational. 

I was a chaotic individual who spread disorder like the dust around Pig-Pen in Peanuts. That was yesterday.  This is today.