Reflection of my Essence

     The reflection that stares back at me is one I have memorized every crease and blemish of.  I've worked to bring body to the flat brown hair that hangs around my face a thousand times.  I see the scars of zits I've worked to tame and I remember staring intently at them in the mirror, tweezers in hand.  My small mouth curls into a smile that I have perfected.  The face that stares back is one that I have attempted to work towards perfection for eighteen years.  My face is the thing that I work to reflect my being.
     My eyes confuse me, though.  Sometimes I stare at them and think, are those my eyes?  They're on my face, after all.  But a reflection of myself should be recognizable as my own, and the big brown eyes in the mirror don't reflect all the feeling in my soul.  They may light up when I'm excited, they may droop when I'm sad, and in those moments I can see the connection between the eyes in the mirror and my own emotions.  But give it a second and I'm lost as to what those eyes are trying to tell the world about my being.
     I see my skin, the years of hate the white race has spread, is still spreading.  I see thousands of years of privilege, of self-righteousness.  I see myself struggling with that, knowing that there are boundaries I will never have to cross for that simple reason.  I do not feel connected to the color of my skin.  It is only a characteristic.
     But the bathroom reflected in the mirror, I see myself in that, in the memories.  I see myself in the mornings, getting ready next to my sister, my best friend.  I see the times I sat while she showered, or she sat while I did, and we talked for hours.  I see our conversations splayed out behind me, about our boyfriends, our dad's alcoholism, our mothers patience, and her temper.  One time in particular comes to mind, when we discussed the people we were working to become, and how close we were to becoming them.  The nonsense songs we've sang in there every morning resonate in my soul in a way the rest of me cannot reflect.  My reflection is of little but my physical being.  The mirror, cracked and spotted with water and makeup, cannot show the essence of my being, the contents of my soul.  Only my memories can reveal that to me.  Only my experiences can help me to discover who I am.  The physical body I see in the mirror holds nothing of those.  The mirror cannot reflect my mind.  And searching for it these in the eyes in the mirror only brings the struggle of telling things in a way they cannot be told.