I Wonder What I Look Like from the Rear?

This is a topic I actually spend many hours consciously not wondering about. If I’m not out there being a gym bunny every other day (as I did very diligently from mid-February to mid-May but then immediately killed the habit when my gym-bunny buddy left town for the summer), what right do I have to fret about how I look to others when I walk away? I am not faced with super jane’s horror of a three-way mirror at work; there are only three (two, really, as one’s decorative and in the hallway and a 10”x10” square) mirrors in my home. I can mostly remain blissfully unaware most of the time.

I have been thinking lately, though, about how I view my whole self—front and back—mentally. I often surprise myself when I look in the mirror and see myself in the present … so much so that I actually do a double-take sometimes. This is because in my mind’s eye, I think I still envision the 21-year-old me. (So sad I missed that entry from last week—my 21st year was, well, an experience!) Yes, I still think that I’m that young, tiny blonde. So when I see photos of myself or really stop to look at myself in the mirror (or windows, which I often do when shopping), I’m shocked to see an older, not-very-tiny almost-brown-haired person. It’s hard to reconcile the two images. They’re separated by almost a decade and many inches of all kinds.

I know I probably look better from behind in reality than I think I do, if The Boy is to be believed. But he’s a man, so he can’t be trusted to see as clearly as another WonderWoman—or a total stranger. But like I stated at the beginning of this wonder, I’m going to go back to telling myself that nobody ever sees me except from the front and as a towheaded, slender twentysomething.

Self-delusion. It’s a beautiful thing.