Reflecting Glass

“Finding identities for yourself is one key to a well-adjusted life. It’s more than recognizing the ways you are known to others. You also have to be able to know which identities you feel comfortable having.”

           She hears Dr. Hensen’s words from their last session play in her mind again. Maya looks at herself in her tri-fold mirror while she considers them. The statements hit her powerfully with an unexpected realization coupled to them. She looks at the other three version of herself who copy her actions back to her. As she watches their gestures, she starts to imagine each of the Maya clones is one of the identities Dr. Hensen has helped her start to understand and accept.

           She focuses first on the woman to her left.

           This person is rooted in the young girl she was growing up. Friendly, polite, sweet, but also shy and hesitant to be not overly cutesy or dramatic around people all the time. She was a child who loved to play, a young girl constantly involving herself in any and all activities grabbing her interest. Each one was based in her own choice to do it too.

           Maya turns fully toward the female on her left. She remembers encouragement she received for her self-determined nature. She was the only one of her friends who played with dolls and a basketball. She would draw for hours one day and choose to read just as long the next. One year, she was convinced she could be a swimming star and begged for lessons.

           “I just know I can swim like Ariel!” She yelled at her parents to get the training time.

The swimming practice didn’t lead to Olympic gold, but Maya didn’t let it deter her. She just found new ideas of fun. Her parents were never negative about her actions and requests either. Their interferences only occurred when she got too wild or excited. For example, they made sure her swimming lessons were taught by a proper lifeguard. Or when she was on the basketball team, the ensured she didn’t over exercise herself to exhaustion.

They also made sure she knew her independence had limits. Maya was allowed to pick out her outfits for her day from the time she was five. Her choices, though, were approved before she was sent out to the world. While she would have loved to have a day at school in a purple blouse with green shorts, her parents ensured she wore less clashing colors. This was especially needed when her strawberry blonde hair started turning more auburn in tone. If she didn’t like a meal, she couldn’t refuse it without saying something for sure she would eat.

“We don’t allow food battles in this house young lady, and you know that,” she recalls her father’s warning.

It was also lucky for them that her constant fervor for new interests decreased over the years of middle and later high school. By the time she was driving, her interests had diminished to a few select clubs. For the more service based ones, Maya successfully completed multiple attempts to become an elected officer. For the softball team, the one sport she held interest in for more than a year, she was a consistent presence behind the plate. Through all her interests, her go-to spirit helped her craft a life built on her own terms. An independent woman through and through. She has been her own woman for all her life before now and hopes to be one again soon.

Maya smiles at the lady on her left side. She receives a grin in return.

“Yes, I’ve always lived my choices for myself.”

Maya looks forward to see the second version of herself. This is the lady she feels she became through the helpful efforts she showed others. Maya remembers being taught from an early age how lucky her own life and the treasures she was given in it were. As a child, she watched her parents give of themselves to many groups in their town. Their volunteerism showed Maya the joy in practicing and supporting Christian values. They also donated many of their own personal items to others who struggled to have their own. By the time she was in fifth grade, Maya started to ask what she could do to help as well. Her parents were not surprised at the request.

“You always follow your own path, my Love,” her mother told her. After the praise, she gave Maya a hug of gratitude for her caring spirit, “I don’t know why I am surprised your independent streak also includes charity.”

Maya followed their example and gave tirelessly of herself in ways fitting for her age at each time. In middle school, she donated toys she no longer played with from her younger days. She also began watching smaller kids in her church’s nursery during the regular services. By high school, she was collecting clothes and household items for adults staying in local shelters for various reasons. Maya knew some of the stories which led their home lives to be less than ideal but she never showed judgments toward them. If anything, knowing one woman’s domestic issues spurred to help her and her children more.

“We’re all humans in this world and deserve to be treated with deep compassion,” she’d said.

She bows to the self in front of her, feeling gratitude toward the giving nature rooted in her own sense of being. The lady bows back and returns the gesture with humility.

Her words about offering everyone the chance to know support ring in her head as she turns to the last woman on her right. In each of her college essays, Maya wrote variations on the theme of helping others. She looks at the last woman and knows her final identity is one based on her chosen career path. It has a trail she now knows has its roots in both her other major identities. First, it was a route which she chose for herself without input from any other person in her life. Second, it was one based in helping others and giving them the support for their own life betterment.

“We’re thrilled to have a daughter who wants to be a doctor, but do you really think primarily focusing on research is the best option?”

Her parents’ concerns were justified. She told them as much then and still believes this now.

“Research is where innovations that can guide the ways to treatment for more people come from,” she’d explained. “Besides, I’m also still going to work a few days a month as a general practitioner in the town near the university’s lab. It’s an ideal combination of both worlds.”

Since that day where she started toward her career goals, Maya’s life has been full of near-constant struggles. It’s also been full of joyful rewards of the same intensity. She wouldn’t trade the events for anything though. She knows she sometimes makes a difference to one person at the town’s clinic. Other times, her only victory is identifying a medicine that could help a small population which previously had no hope for it. Those wins were enough. They were all I needed to know I’d used my skills well.

Maya sighs as she continues to stand in front of the mirror. She suddenly feels the weight of her emotional burden. The distress which originally led her to Dr. Hensen clamps down on her heart.  

When her parents died suddenly in a car accident on the way to the airport for their fortieth wedding anniversary trip, Maya was devastated. She didn’t know what to do with her human guideposts being gone forever. Sure, she’d lived life through her own choices, as she’s remembering more than ever today. Without her parents, the people who let her find herself and never discouraged her from doing so, she had no idea who she was anymore.

The feelings of loss, both in grief and overall life direction, became unbearable. Maya’s work at both the lab and clinic suffered. She had no desire to do anything, and for a while, she didn’t want to ever again. Her boss noticed within a week and recommended her to see a therapist. She told her about a counselor who helped with traumatic grief. She gave her a name, Dr. Hensen.

The first few weeks were torturous. She had to relive and remember years of support knowing she would never receive any more. Dr. Hensen let her explore all of her feelings toward the deaths without judgment. She only assured her that her emotions were normal. Then, suddenly, a month into their work, Maya was hit with a breakthrough about a struggle she’d been battling without her parents’ encouragement.

“I don’t know if I have an identity if I’m not Jim and Pam Crayson’s daughter.”

From there, Dr. Hensen and Maya began talking about what identities mean and how they’re created. She suggested for Maya to consider who she saw when she looked in the mirror and what her physical identity was first. 

Maya followed the advice a few days in a row to little success. She looks at the mirror again and looks over the three women in front of her in recall of the first talk. Today is different.

She knows her mirror isn’t a magic one like Alice’s looking glass and never will be. She nods with bitter gladness, knowing she doesn’t want it to be such a thing. She decides today it has been her tool for self-reflection. I’ve used this to process my life so far and figure out my own self-awareness. Her mirror is something to help her process life thus far, and that’s all she needs it to be.