Her Reflection

My alarm begins to howl on the dresser beside me letting me know it’s now 6:30am and time to get myself up and ready for my shift at the cafe. My boyfriend lying beside me rolls over slowly and rambles on about how my shift doesn’t start until nine o’clock and waking up over two hours early is unnecessary. I gently smile and remind him I have a long morning routine as I roll out of bed and head straight towards the ten-foot-high mirror that sits in the corner of my room. 

I stand with my feet shoulder length apart staring at my reflection and I lift my oversized tee to my chest, grab my tape measure, and begin to measure the width of all areas of my body. Turning side to side very few minutes and grabbing every one of my imperfections to see if they are beginning to perfect themselves. I then sit in front of my reflection with my phone in one hand and tissue in another scrolling through social media platforms comparing myself to the beautiful women that appear upon my screen. I think to myself “what can I do to be as beautiful as them?” and my boyfriend already knowing what I am thinking sits behind me curling his arms around my body says, “everything you already are enough”. He clings to my body as if it were a masterpiece built in the heavens of beauty every morning, but a smile has yet to appear on my face. 

My boyfriend’s eyes begin to get wide and light up as he pulls me closer and whispers to me that he has an idea. He has given me plenty of these before such as romanticizing myself, allowing him to do things to make me feel good about my appearances, etc. I motion him to go on with his idea even though in my head it was already one that wasn’t going to work. He tells me to go into the bathroom and get ready for work and he was going to go make us breakfast. I stood there confused considering we usually part our own ways for the day after we wake up. He gets breakfast on his way to work, and I usually don’t eat until around lunch time, but I nodded as he kissed my forehead and begins to take off towards the kitchen. When I get done getting ready, he has plated amazing smelling eggs, bacon, and pancakes on my place mat and is pouring orange juice into the glasses as he waits for me. As we eat breakfast, he asks me questions about how work and my online schooling for nursing is going. I try to ask him about what his plans are for work, but he gives me a brief answer and asks if I needed any help with anything around the house today. This is very unusual because he usually tells me all the things at work that are stressing him out and vents to me about his coworkers however, I go along with it until it’s time for us to leave the house.

I clocked into work with a smile on my face for many reasons; not only did I only have one shift today but my boyfriend had taken time out of his morning to make me feel cared for. The question of what his idea was crosses my mind but a customer walks in and sits in my section so that thought had to wait. The rush at work came in and time flew by me and before I knew it, it was time to clock out and head home for the day. I planned to go home and clean the house before running to the grocery store to pick up a few things to cook for dinner.

When I return home, I see my boyfriend sitting in the white rocking chair on our front porch with flowers in his hand. It takes me by surprise because he usually doesn’t get off work until five and only buys me things on important dates such as anniversaries and birthdays. As I walk onto the porch he stands and approaches me with a big hug and smile on his face. I ask him what was with the flowers, and he replies, “I saw them at the store, and they reminded me of you”. I smile as we head into the door of our home that was freshly deep cleaned when I had planned to come home and do the cleaning. I ask him why he took his lunch break to come home and clean and he tells me he took the rest of the day off to make sure things around the house were set for me to come home. The question of what his idea is crosses my mind again and I begin to assume that it’s to take a stress load off my shoulders. While it sure does make life easier, this however doesn’t help the way I feel about my reflection in the mirror, so I refrain from saying anything about it. I thank him and tell him I will run to the grocery store for dinner as I head upstairs to once again examine myself. 

After about thirty minutes later I come back down, and my boyfriend tells me he has made reservations to go eat dinner. We change clothes and get ready, and he walks me to my favorite pasta place around the corner. As we arrive, we see an elderly woman crossing the road and he hurries over to her, grabs her hand and walks her to the next street. I stood there in awe as I had never seen him worry about someone else the way he seemed to be worried about her. I tell him how thoughtful and kind that was of him and he replies, “doing anything is better than have a possibility of not doing everything you can to help someone, even in the slightest way”. I got a flashback of when I said almost that exact phrase to him seven years ago when I went to the homeless shelter every night to help pass out food. I froze yet continued to not say anything about how unusually kind he had been today. We eat our dinner and as our waitress comes with the check, he slips her a forty-dollar tip and tells her we appreciate how well she had taken care of us tonight. Every time we go eat, he usually puts a five on the table and goes on about his day, and I slip the waitress a twenty. I had never in the time I had known him seen him be so selfless towards people who were complete strangers to him. 

As we are walking home, he sees a patch of dandelions on the side of the road and asks for my hair tie. I give it to him, and he goes and picks up ten flowers and ties them together at the stems with my hair tie, hands them to me, and tells me that yellow compliments me well. I stop in my tracks and look at him in a daze for a few minutes. I then say, “you’ve been awfully nice to me and others today”. A soft smile appears upon his face, and he says “no, I’ve been your reflection today”. I look at him confused and he finally says “I took today to do everything that you do for others. Go out of my way to help, I have put others before me, I have been utterly caring to everyone around me even when I had no reason to be. I sat at breakfast and worried more about how you were doing rather than talking about myself. I went above and beyond to make sure you came home to something you would appreciate. The one thing I did today was reflect who you are and do the things you do daily. These aspects and behaviors you show, these are what make you so unique and beautiful, not the reflection you see staring back at you in the mirror every morning and night however those aspects are just as beautiful”.

My alarm begins to howl on the dresser beside me letting me know it’s now 7:30am and time to get myself up and ready for my shift at the café. My boyfriend lying beside me rolls over slowly and tells me he will go get breakfast ready.