The Reflection In The Mirror

The shock of cold water against my skin was sudden and intense. I could feel it soaking into the thick fabric of the neck of my sweater and knew I was going to regret that in a couple minutes but still it didn't stop me. Rather to the contrary I scooped up another handful and splashed it over my face.

Exhale slow. Center yourself. Turn up and look at your reflection and then stop because now things make even less sense than they did before.

If you stop and you close your eyes and you conjure your image of your own face you will be wrong about what you look like. Because you're not really thinking of yourself, you're only thinking of the version of yourself that you believe yourself to be.

We all walk around with ideas of who we are but we are often the only person to think of ourselves like that.

I think if you're confident that probably means seeing all of your best qualities writ large. All of the best parts of you, or the parts you like best at least, are present because they're the ones you focus on. Maybe you like your hair so it's perfectly coiffed. Maybe you like your lips, or your eyes, so they're exaggerated in the self image you keep in your mind.

On the contrary if you're not confident or hate your appearance that's what you focus on instead. You see all your flaws and all your blemishes and you cannot and will not be able to ignore them. The speckle of acne scars on your cheeks. The uneven camber of your nose.

But regardless of whether you are happy or unhappy with yourself, your true reflection is still different. It is no more a true image of you than any other out there, and yet seeing it can still be a shock.

The shock I felt now, though, was something else entirely.

The reflection in my mirror was so far from the image of myself that I couldn't at first understand it. I looked in the mirror and saw the water dripping off the face in front of me and the first thought I had was that I'd stumbled into some odd kind of bathroom that had windows instead of mirrors.

Then I blinked and they blinked. Then I, with a single finger, wiped a drop of water off my face and they did the same. Then I realized the reflection in the mirror was me and I think everything broke a little more.

All of them was none of me.

Soft. Cute. Pretty. Petite.

Big eyes and little nose, cute and pert and full lips. Cheekbones that were present without being imposing. Eyes that were a dark shade of warm brown and were wide and open and present for me. Hair roughly the same length as my own but cut into an undeniable pixie cut instead, parted at the side and hanging over their forehead a little. A smattering of freckles across their cheeks, across the bridge of their nose.

And undeniably feminine of course. Undeniably a woman in the reflection and a woman in me.

My mouth dropped open and her lips parted, her teeth showing out perfect and even where mine had not been. I started to panic and her bottom lip started to tremble and I blinked rapidly, fighting to hold onto those first thoughts of disbelief and ignore the secondary line coming up from some place deep and instinctual inside of me.

I wanted to still panic. I wanted to freak the fuck out. I did not want to think what my brain was thinking.

Fuck, she's beautiful.

She had the look of a girl next door, that kind of understated beauty that could break your heart without even realizing it. She was all bundled up in layers, practically swimming in them, and the panic writ on my emotions was playing out as panic for her, yes, but it was also the kind of panic that made you want to wrap her up and comfort her.

My hand moved up almost automatically, reaching up to grasp and pinch my cheek hard. In the mirror her delicate fingers moved graceful and sure to recreate the movement and I watched and then I felt it. The shock of pain before I jerked my hand back and stared down at hers.

Oh god it was real. Oh my fucking god.

I'd been turned into a woman.

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