The Me Who Is Now
There is a photo on our refrigerator that I love. I didn’t love it when I first saw it. It was taken at a Bat Mitzvah, and the Melissa in the photo didn’t look like the Melissa inside my brain. At the same time, I was aware that the Melissa in the photo bore a striking resemblance to the Melissa in the mirror (who also did not look like the Melissa inside my brain).
But months after the event, I decided to print it out because everyone else looked good, and I moved it onto the refrigerator so I could look at everyone else.
And then I kept aging.
At some point during the pandemic, I looked at the photo and thought, “Why did I ever think I didn’t look good here? I looked great here. Whereas now…”
And the cycle began anew.
There was a recent New York Times article about this phenonemon that I’ve re-read a few times now because it got under my skin. (I still need to read her book, Loribeth!) Especially this part:
One of the skills I’ve acquired since turning 40 is the ability to recognize there will likely always be a gap between seeing a photo of myself and appreciating it. That gap, I’ve realized, is the time it takes me to overcome all the ways I’ve been taught to value myself in the world. The older I get, the more I understand that delay as evidence of a sort of theft. One that I’m only now understanding has occurred, and it is my anger over that which has helped shorten it.
I am trying to get there because it is a theft. And I don’t want that gap. I want to appreciate the me who is now, not miss the now me later.
5 comments
I saw that article too (and yes, it’s a great book, lol). I know could weep when I look at photos of myself as a teenager/20-something. I thought I was fat then…!!
Yes!!! Thanks for this post.
I never thought about it before… I definitely have a hard time accepting the current photo version of self because it doesn’t match what I think I look like 🙂
And I refuse to get glasses because then I would REALLY be able to see myself in the mirror….
Yes. I remember taking some pictures when my children were really young of them sitting on my lap at breakfast and I had just woken up no make up, etc. and I thought I looked absolutely awful and old. And now a few years later if I see those photos I’m like wow I looked great back then.
I had to get a new phone recently and unexpectedly and I got one with a good camera because that matters a lot to me and I hated how poor quality the selfie photos were on my old one.
So I picked up the new phone and P climbed on my lap and I snapped a selfie and then I almost cried because the new camera was so good it highlighted just how old and how tired and how worn I look right now.
I still haven’t taken another selfie.
Exactly what Loribeth said. I thought I was fat in my teens and 20s, and was in fact underweight. Sigh. And even now, or perhaps especially now, the Mali in photos is not the Mali inside my brain, or even sometimes the Mali in the mirror (I think I have body dysmorphia – I think I look slimmer in the mirror than I am), though she is the Mali caught suddenly in a reflection in a shop window!