Mirrors...

It really started as just little things said here and there over the years. He didn't like my perfume, so he picked out a new one for me, encouraged me to change my hair color. He took me clothes shopping and picked out clothes for me. I was flattered. He was interested in me. I thought it meant he cared, that I could do better.

As time went on he complained about my music, he didn't like my choice of restaurant, renamed my dog. In the end, he didn't like much of anything, unless it was something he chose. Of course, when he 'fixed it', I was grateful. It was all so subtle. They were insignificant little incidents spread over a 20 year period. All too often, he was simply dismissive and uninterested. I was invisible. The most frustrating part is that I didn't even realize it was happening.

An accumulation of little things untended become an avalanche.

One day he said "you just won't change, I have finally come to accept that." Two days later, he and twenty years of my life, were gone. Luckily, there is with every ending, a new beginning.

Through much reflection, I have come to realize the process of becoming invisible began many, many years before. It began as a pre-adolescent trying to be perfect, but never quite good enough. I now understand, I chose him because he was a mirror, a manifestation of my self image, my own reflection. He was my insecurities made manifest.

I always swore my life would be different. But in the end, I am more like my mother, my grandmother and great- grandmother than I could have ever anticipated. They, too, were invisible. Each one now part of a series of funhoused mirror images, one within another, going back for generations looking back at me. It is a stream of consciousness, a thread that binds us, offering a greater understanding of not only myself, but of them as well. Maybe, in the long run, that is enough to change the future, break the cycle and free us all from our mirrored prisons ...

The Spinner Weaves
The Weaver Spins
and Laima Dreams