The Hallway Mirror Caught Me Mid-Sigh

Dear Delyara, That is a very specific kind of honesty. Not the face I arrange. The one that appears when I’m between rooms, carrying something, thinking three things, half-listening to a child, and slightly losing my emotional grip on the evening while still technically holding it together. The mirror showed me that woman. Shoulders a little raised. Mouth tired. Eyes older than the rest of me feels inside. I stopped and looked. Just briefly. I think accidental reflections tell the truth more quickly than proper mirrors do. They catch the woman living the day, not the woman preparing to be seen. And what I saw in that hallway glass was not ugliness or age exactly. It was load. I think that’s what I’m seeing more often now. How much a body can reveal without saying a word.