The Woman in the Mirror

Are you beautiful?

!?

In her hesitation I found my answer. She was sure that the beauty is only in the eye of the beholder and that the beholder is tired to look at her and not find a woman matching the standards set by a narrow vision of femininity. She was also tired to look at herself with confidence. The image in the mirror was far from that of her role models. She was obsessed with the cover-girls’ perfection, with the fake myths about ideal dimensions of bust, waist and hips, with the new trends for body size and shape. Because she thought of “beauty” as an “outfit” not an inside thing, she totally forgot about being healthy no matter if this meant to gain or loose some weight and be out of the strict box with perfect body measurements. She also forgot about wearing a smile under the 3D shining effect moisturizing lip gloss. Her false eyelashes transformed her mysterious look into fake doll glances. I couldn’t understand how she could discriminate the people for the colour of the skin she was paying to obtain in a “beauty salon”, torturing her body.

Hidden under her mask, she couldn’t answer my question. Then she thought I’m joking when I told her that I am.

Yes, I am beautiful. I found inner peace and respected both my body and my mind. I didn’t value more some trends than my health. I knew that the only everlasting fashion is the inside beauty.

She laughed at me. Of course, I didn’t meet the standards. And she had lots of tips for me: first, I could eat cotton balls dipped in orange juice to feel full. Why on Earth I would order something like that for lunch? Change my hair colour, get quickly tanned, use some blue contact lenses, …,... . Can you imagine she had a full list of do’s and dont’s on how to be beautiful? But she couldn’t reach her goal, although she was strictly respecting it. One day, she hopes to be beautiful. That’s her aim.

The woman in her mirror had her eyes and soul closed.

Diana-Adela