Mirror Images

It has always been said that mirrors are harmless because they are just a reflection.  This is hardly ever the case.  Mirrors reflect back what we put our energy towards.  If one does not like his or her reflection then all he or she has to do is try to focus on the positive aspects of a situation while letting his or her feelings flow even if they are negative.

I work inside of a call center talking to others about financial matters.  I am not allowed to go to the bathroom very often.  I have to stick to the script without showing any emotion whatsoever.  I am supposed to sit in a chair and take verbal abuse all day long without blinking.  Because I am not allowed to feel things deeply, my inner voice gets upset when I do not listen to it.  My stomach then starts to get tight, and I might feel sick later on in the day.  This happened on a daily basis for quite a while.  I have even suffered stress related illnesses such as pharyngitis because of the circumstances.

When my father was still alive, my home life was not that great.   I did not feel like I could express myself freely in front of him.  I was always very dry and somewhat robotic when he was around.  This is very similar to how I felt when I am at work.  Because I was stressed out a lot of the time, I had difficulty going to the bathroom right before going to bed.  Sometimes my father would pick me up from work when I got sick and wanted to come home early.  Before even getting out of the car to help me pack up my walker, he would say things such as “you are going to lose your fifty thousand dollar job.”  Any other ordinary person would ask how I was feeling and wonder why I got sick quite a bit.  My father was never concerned about my health.  When I got some teeth pulled late last year, the only thing that my father worried about was whether or not my I had job security.  The same can be said for my place of employment as well.  When the company bought lunch for the employees, everyone was served food from places such as Pizza Hut, Chik-fil-A, and Popeyes.  These are not the best choices for nourishment when it comes to nutrition. 

My father went to the hospital a few days after the Fourth of July holiday.  I did not have a ride home from the work that day.  I had to take a taxi to get home.  I then called the police to file a missing person’s report because I was not aware that my father had been hospitalized.  My father was only supposed to visit the doctor after he dropped me off at the call center.  I then received news of my father’s passing three weeks later through a text message from my brother.  I had to make the choice the night before weather or not I would try to prolong the life span of my father or let him go.  I have been or leave from work for a while trying to sort out my affairs from what transpired

The comparison of the call center and my father indicate that they were just mirror images of one another.  I felt as if I could not express myself freely in the call center as well as in a conversation with my father.  My father did not care about my health or his for that matter.  This image is replicated in the food choices that were offered at work.   I had suffered bathroom difficulties in both places on multiple occasions.  I took leave from the call center the day I filed the missing person’s report.  In a sense, my father’s death marked changes in my career path. 

Mirrors are not just a pointless reflection that we use for physical beauty.  They reveal what is going on in each of our lives.  Everyone has the ability to change the path that he or she is traveling at any point in time.  People can choose to believe that mirrors lie about their reflection, or they can take steps to improve what is reflected.  Every event in life comes down small choices made on a daily basis.  The choices that an individual selects in the present are then reflected in an event that takes place at some later time period.  Choices start from the inside and then ripple outward.  I did not use my power in active way.  I let others take my power and use it for themselves.  The choice to give my power away led down a pathway full of negative consequences.  My father abused me by draining all of my financial resources.  I did not have much of an identity of my own outside of my job at the call center.  Now I have to develop an identity that is separate from a career.  I need to develop some skills that I value in order to leave my mark on the world.  Ever since my father and the call center have disappeared from my life, I am no longer stressed over every little thing.  The reflection in the mirror is a lot different now than it was five months ago.  Hopefully the choices I am currently making will change the image that I see for the better.