What Is Happening, Mirror? Who The Hell Is That?

Mirrors are unmercifully accurate, and unkind; they assault you early in the morning, before you’re awake. Many’s the time I’ve just gone to brush my teeth, and gotten a full-on faceful of MY GOD WHO IS THAT PASTY FAT FUCK.

But things have changed recently.

I’ve been seeing a personal trainer for the past three years, and at this point I’m still a chubby bastard, but that pudgy fat is underlaid with cabled muscle. There are hints of a six-pack beneath the soft belly, the core is tight. My whole posture is different; I used to slump, a residual effect of being bullied in middle school – don’t wanna stand tall and get a slap to the back of the neck – but now I’ve been restrung so that the muscles beneath my scapulas pull me up tight and tall.

I am a different physical being.

And I’ve lost twenty pounds over the last three months. Despite my doctors’ plaudits, that’s not actually a good thing; I’ve been so consumed by worry over my mother’s cancer (though she’s doing okay now) and my wife’s crippling neck pain that I’ve forgotten to eat, and as a result I’m just eating less these days.

But it does mean a different mirror in the morning.

Instead of being repulsed by a bug-eyed heap of belly fat, I walk by the mirror and am neutral. Not impressed; I’m no body-builder, to be sure. But I’m not opposed to what I’m now seeing, which is oddly strange.

There’s still a lot to dislike, personally. I hate that (much tinier) sag of belly over my waistline, my hips are weird, my man-tits are still blobby. But there’s enough of the shape of a masculine dude who I would like to be underneath that I examine myself and go, “That’s acceptable.”

“That’s acceptable” isn’t a feeling I’ve had about myself physically in, oh, thirty years.

I don’t really plan on reshaping myself into some cum-guttered god, simply because that’s a lot of effort and I prefer more intellectual pursuits, like sitting on the couch and snagging all the achievements in Yakuza: Like A Dragon. But it is weird to wake up in the morning, grab my toothbrush, and pause because what’s looking back at me is…

It’s all right. It’s got defined muscles in the arms, legs, and belly, it’s standing straight, it’s passable. I don’t need any psychological blinders to convince myself “Aww, that’s not so bad.” It’s just me, and that’s all right.

Which is taking a strange amount of effort to get used to, as it’s still shock – before, it was shock at “HOW DID YOU LET YOURSELF GO” and now it’s shock at “HOW DID YOU GET YOURSELF HERE,” but still a brief rollercoaster bump in the morning regardless.

Yet here we are. Full of muscle. Tight core. Straight posture. Head shaved.

Not bad.