Reflection

    ​Beauty is everywhere you look if you take the time to see it.  I see beauty in the sky, in the ocean and in the faces of my children but somehow, I still struggle to see the beauty in the mirror.  For countless years, I’ve struggled to see past the undesirable insecurities that I have inscribed on my own reflection. I was never smart enough, not black enough, too skinny, not tall enough; just not enough. I blamed other people in my life for the blemishes that I’d placed on my reflection. I had created so many excuses instead of finding the true beauty in myself to outweigh the antagonistic clattering of my own mind.  I made excuse after excuse saying that my father was too strict, my mother was too strong and independent, I was the youngest child, I was a female, I was multi-racial; however, I did know that I was alive.

      I am alive, and I am living!  The smudges on my reflection had evolved over the years.  Some are good, some are bad and many not even written yet. I am finding the true beauty that is in every label that I had thought to be negative of myself and eliminating the smudges that had been placed on me by society.  I am learning to take more time out of each day to spend with myself.  I am growing to love the beauty in the reflection that I see.  Some days, there are new words written on my reflection and other days, some words are simply forgotten. Slowly moving forward, sometimes falling forward, I can lift my head and finally see the smile on my reflection that has been encouraging others for myself.  I can see the smile that makes everyone else feel at ease.  Falling forward, the smile in my reflection is encouraging me to not just be alive, but to love living.        

Queen P