tw: forced marriage mention, self/body image, implied racism, intergenerational trauma
When you look in the mirror, you are hit with a few rapid realisations in rapid succession.
And you don’t have time to process any of them because all you were doing was sorting something in your hair out because you need to leave but there’s a minute to do this one last thing.
But they remain new things you are forced to confront and face and accept and learn from.
In no particular order, this is what they are:
There’s a few spots that have suddenly appeared right where the temple of your glasses hits and you need to remember to not pick at them
Your glasses actually do fit your face and when you think they’re crooked, it’s because you’re looking at the photos too intently
Sometimes, you do actually look quite pretty, and maybe your eyes do have a slight sparkle to them, but it belongs to you and not the man who lets you panic
There are many women in your family who had the same face as you when they were forced to marry men they didn’t love then and don’t love now
You haven’t gone over the outside of the mirror in a while
Then that makes you realise that your features, which you thought were pretty a moment ago, serve as a reminder that for every life that has blessed your family, another woman is given a reason why she can’t start again
You are a reflection of what happens when things start to change and people get to make their own decisions because there is still a hope to the eyes and an upwards tilt to the mouth
The ease with which you genuinely smile means something has gotten better because a few years ago, you would have resembled your mother in the wedding photos you don’t ever remember seeing but must have been shown- tight lipped and unwilling
No matter how pretty you may think you are, you will never be enough for them and it will always be that you’re pretty for an Asian girl, rather than it just being enough to give the fucking compliment
The mirror needs to be dusted
Somewhere in your face is the man who gave up his own dreams and the chance to stay with his family to give his future family a better life, but you’ll never know whether he misses it because he hides it all away
The fact that you even have your glasses is a miracle, because there is someone back where you’re meant to be who still hasn’t received that treatment that they need to live
Your teeth aren’t fully straight because you didn’t wear your retainer, and the reasons for that don’t even exist to you, but it seems silly now even though you still hate brushing your teeth
If you squint, that’s definitely moisturiser that has somehow ended up there
Maybe it doesn’t matter what your face means about the history of the women you never feel enough for because it currently represents an act of rebellion since you’re not meant to be happy and yet you are
Perhaps your grandchildren will be able to believed they were loved for generations when they look in the mirror and have reminders of you pointed out
When your parents are apart, they seem to be at their happiest, but you are a strange combination of the two of them and perhaps that’s why they always try to say you look like them: so they aren’t forced to confront the permanent reminder of a pointless marriage
Actually, you can’t be pretty because your father is too much of everything and everyone always says you look just like your mother but she says it’s good you don’t like her because she has never been pretty so somebody must be lying to you
There has never been a good relationship, so now your face doesn’t quite know what to do when people are happy because you’re thinking about the first time things go wrong and what they will do when that comes around
Your face is not a sign that people have loved each other for generations because it’s a reminder that you are still trying to heal the pain of a thousand women whose dreams were completely taken from them for the sake of a parents wish and you don’t know where to put that pain or how you’re meant to survive it because it comes to the surface every time you look at yourself
You haven’t sorted your hair out but it’s time to go and so you have to leave with the mess that’s only mostly covered and hope nobody comments (but they do, and it drives the messages home.)
- what are you meant to do when you start to believe there is no love attached to the reflection you confront each day?
