I’ve never been what one would call “conventionally attractive.” I’ve struggled with my weight since I was a kid, and I’m below average, height-wise. Mean classmates (and my parents) called me Grimace. My body image issues got so bad that I loathed and feared looking in the bathroom mirror each day. But I’m proud to say that I’m finally at a place where I can accept myself—and my body—for who I am.
What changed? I started smashing mirrors instead of looking at them.
My epiphany was this: If I can’t see what I look like, then I don’t really know what I look like…and that means I could potentially look like anything. A few days ago, I was a short, tubby, balding, red-faced Grimace. But by getting rid of all mirrors and reflective surfaces (I also smashed up my stainless steel appliances), there’s no way to know for sure I’m now not an undeniably gorgeous Adonis with lightly tanned skin, eight-pack abs, and calves so muscular you’d swear they were implants. Also, I’ve now got a butt that won’t quit, because I quit…looking at myself in the mirror and thereby knowing for sure what I look like.
After smashing my own mirror, I smashed the mirror in the other bathroom—the downstairs one. And then I smashed the one in my roommate’s bedroom, and the primarily decorative one in the entryway, too. Then it got dark outside, and with the lights on in the house, the windows turned into mirror-like surfaces. I smashed them as well. Fuck those inanimate assholes.
This is the new me! Or, I mean, it might as well be. It could be. Who really knows? Not me.
I soon realized I needed to liberate not just myself, but everyone from society’s narrow notions of beauty. I wandered through my neighborhood, smashing every reflective surface I passed. Windows and side mirrors on cars, shop windows, glass in public bathrooms and restaurants, the overhead security mirror at the all-night Walgreens, makeup compacts I grabbed right out of ladies’ hands—they all got a taste of my body acceptance hammer.
Sure, there were protests. “Sir, please stop,” “The police are on their way,” and, “There’s glass fucking everywhere!” were just a few of the complaints I heard throughout my smash-based enlightenment marathon. But there will always be resistance to a revolution. And that’s exactly what this is.
You’re welcome.
Images: Pixabay, Pexels, Pixabay