late nights and loud fights
it's all just a blur

8:48 p.m. | 2005-04-20
Most Days, I'm Obsessed

I saw myself in reflective glass at the gym today.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of mirrors at my gym, and I don't avoid them by any means, in fact I saw myself many times in them today. But it was the glass that got me. I was resting when I looked over and saw a boy with perfectly cut calves, a face from an Abercrombie catalog, and hair that waved in that chic surfer boy way. I rolled my eyes as he looked at me and I automatically made the assumption that he probably thought I was checking him out. I wasn't. I was laughing at him. But I soon realized something.

I think I misjudged him.

I looked at his shoulder as he pulled his leg from the ledge he was stretching on and saw a tattoo of a wolf on his shoulder. It could easily have been a wall tattoo that he picked to show his "fierce side" but I looked at it again. It was proportional, soft, realistic and formal. I felt my stomach sink as I realized that I had put this whole character on him without thinking twice.

He walked away and behind him was the glass on an office door. I saw myself. I finished my sets as I watched myself trying to hold it all in. I looked around at everyone. I payed very close attention and saw stretch marks that people were trying to hide, necrosis on the back of arms and necks, flaws that people were trying so hard to hide but with a little attention was easy to see.

Then I thought about my own hips. What I was trying to cover up. I thought more about how people don't notice some of my biggest flaws, how when they look at me it's just like that glass, slightly blurred and just a general image. Everyone around me has a story. They're so much more than those things I noticed and they all have reasons for why they are how they are. I browsed over every single one of those stories. They do the same to me, but...I still did it.

I've started paying more attention to people, trying to have sympathy for them the way I wish they'd have sympathy for me.

Hopefully it'll pay off.

ante / comment / post