The Mirror

Susan stared at her reflection in the bedroom mirror.”Where has the time gone? What do I have to show for all these years?”

She wondered how different life would have been ,”If only.”

“If only what? If only, I would have continued with art? If only, I would have finished that book? If only, I would have continued with piano? Why did I quit?”

Tears filled the brim of her eyes, nails digging the palms of clenched fists, “Why did you quit? Why do you always quit?f Her fists pounding the reflection as if she could knock some sense in herself. As if hitting her reflection would turn back the hands of time.

“If I could go back in time would I really change anything? Would I stay committed to anything?” Would my reflection be any different?

Susan took a step closer to the full length mirror, looking past her reflection. “Something is different. The bed cover."

Spinning on her heels, looking at the room with crips neutral colors of beiges and creams. Slowly turning back to the mirror, Yes, that is a pink bedspread.” peering in the mirror, she saw reflections that just could not be there.

“Wait minute! That is my old bedroom, when I as sixteen. Mom and dad allowed me to pick out new bedding, I chose pink". Looking in the corner of the room, Susan was surprised, “There is my oh my word! My favorite doll with my baby dress on, pink of course!”

Susan leaned closer to the mirror looking at every corner of the reflection.

Practically willing her self to go through the mirror to a place she missed Shaking her head and closing her eyes, Susan resolved “The past is the past and there is no returning to it, let alone changing anything.”

Opening her eyes she saw her present bedroom the mirror’s reflection. Turning around she gasped she was standing in, not her current bedroom, but her old teenage bedroom.

Looking back at her mirror she saw her reflection as a sixteen year old. Dark blonde hair, clear blue eyes, bright skin, same turned up nose. “Well I guess somethings will stay the same.”

Susan was more intrigued than astonished or even scared. Taking a couple steps toward her pink chenille covered bed, she fell face first on it, “Downy fabric softener! Mom always used it in the laundry.” Pushing herself up on her elbows, she shook her head. “Wake up Susan! You are dreaming!”

She looked again at her bed she was lying on, “PINK! This is my bedroom when I was a junior in high school!”

A familiar scent wafted across Susan’s nostrils, sniffing. “Cinnamon rolls, mom’s cinnamon rolls! But wait , that can’t be!” “Susan!” Her mom’s voice called. “Do you want a cinnamon roll? Come get one while they are warm I just made frosting for them.” Susan’s mind was racing “This can’t be! I must be dreaming or else I am, I am loosing my mind”.

In the corner of the room was her old desk and several notebooks full of poems and doodling “Why did I give up on this?” Susan thought as she flipped through the pages.

Opening a desk drawer, she found water color paintings. Paintings of sunsets and beaches. Paining of her parents’s old worn out shed in the backyard.

These things cannot really exist. This has to be a dream, but it seems so real,”

Susan looked at the mirror. The reflection was not of her teenage bedroom but her current adult bedroom. Susan l looked back and forth at the reflection and of the room she was in,”two different rooms. The mirror must be some type of portal to my past! What does it mean? Can I really go back and do those things I gave up on again?

Standing transfixed, she heard a voice”Do you really want to go back?”

“Aren’t I back now? This is my old room.”

“Yes it is your old room but you are not completely back in your past. You will see there are no doors here no windows.” Susan took notice of the windowless room and that there indeed was no door. “Strange.”

“I am allowing you to experience a small piece of your past, the one place where you felt like yourself , the place where you would allow your creative self to emerge, your room.”

“ If I was to allow you to return to your past completely, would you stayed committed to those things you gave up or would you give up again when discouraged, when life was hard. Would you truly keep preserving?’

Susan immediately said “Yes, I would go back so I could do so many different things with my creativity. Then I would not be standing here wishing I had done something more.”

“Be careful in what you ask, for if you return, you will face the same obstacles and have the same choices on how to proceed or not. I gave you your creative desires for I am creative but I cannot and will not make it happen for you."

"You will encounter those who oppose you, you must stand. You will encounter failure, you must try again. I will be with you.”

“If you return, you will relive everything over again.You will age again. Experience failed relationships. You will have disappointments in friends and family. You will again go through the loss of loved ones, including your mother.”

“The only thing you will have is opportunity to not quit the creative endeavors you had actually started.”

“Are you willing to go through the heartache and pain of life agin for chance the you would do something more? I will not guarantee success.”

“ Think hared about what your life means to those around you. Think about how their lives would look if you would not be in it. Your memories of everything will be retained. You will always be aware of your current life but those in it now may not exist again.”

“Think hard on this if you return and go through the last fifty years again, you will not be allowed to return to this time, so think hard on these things.”

Susan closed her eyes, took a breath and opened them. She looked at the rooms reflection int the mirror, it was her present bedroom with the simple clean lines of neutrality. She turned and saw her current bedroom.

No signs of her past teenage room. No smells of cinnamon rolls. No mother’s voice and no divine audible voice either.

“I must have imagined everything. it could not have been real. Absolutely the no way. I need to get some sleep.”

Susan crawled between the sheets of the bed. She was practically asleep before her head hit her pillow.

Waking up, she recalled the events of the night before, “Wow, that was some crazy dream. Seeing my old room the smells I remember as a teen, haring mom’s voice and”

Susan thought a moment,“Did I really hear a voice ? God’s voice?? Nah, couldn’t be, but it was so real.”

Susan got out of bed and went toward the mirror looking at her reflection, the same reflection she saw every morning.

Susan thought hard on the things she heard, not really knowing if she actually heard them or dreamed them.

“Think hard on this if you return and go through the last fifty hears again, you will not be allowed to return to this time, so think hard on these things.”

Closing her eyes, she pictured her old room, imagined the smell of cinnamon rolls, her mom’s voice. She thought of the different paths her life took. “Would I change things if I could? Oh who am I kidding, there is no way I can go back to change any part of my past.”

Susan gasped when she opened her eyes and in the mirror ,there was her teenage bedroom the pink bedding the baby doll sitting in the rocking chair stuffed animals everything, clear, she stood frozen.

“Is this real?” Turning around she saw her current room, turning again to the mirror she saw her past bedroom Reaching her hand toward her past she recalled all the voice had said.

HerThe head was spinning. Once again she was caught between her current world and her past .

“Would I do things different? Would I know then what I I know now?”

Susan heard or thought she heard the voice. “Your knowledge and emotions would be that of the age you return to, for the events that helped shape your current views and opinions will not have occurred. The choice is yours.”

Susan looked at her pink room in the mirror and then at her present bedroom behind her. “I want things to be different but how? How do I change where I am, without changing everything? How do I change where I am without going back ?”

“If you want to return to your past, go to the mirror and touch the reflection of the room. Maybe things will change, maybe not. You can do nothing and things will not change, but you will continue to wish they had, or you can start today making changes to your attitude and what you do with your creativity. Your choice.”

Susan walked to the mirror seeing her teenage room, she reached toward the reflection. “I could go back and paint more, keep playing the piano or write a story or I could choose to do those things now. Oh for the chance to change my current life. "

"Stay or go?"