I looked at myself in the mirror and did not attack what I saw

Dear Delyara, I know that sounds small. It wasn’t. For years, the mirror has been a courtroom. Too old. Too tired. Too soft. Too marked. Too far from the woman I used to be. Too far from the woman I thought I would become. Even on good days, some critic in me usually arrives before kindness does. This morning, for once, she didn’t. I looked at my face and thought: you have carried a lot. That was all. No punishment. No cruelty. No instant reduction of myself to flaws. I cannot explain how strange and healing that felt. To see myself without immediately turning into my own enemy. That is a victory I have wanted for years.