What We Tell Ourselves

Mirror talks. I heard someone use that term this week. It’s those moments you have, usually in the morning, when you’re alone. You’re at your most vulnerable because that’s when we always are - when we are alone. Teeth brushed, hair (or lack thereof in my case) fixed, deep breath taken. Ready for a new day. Ready for the people and problems that are always coming. Once more into the fray, good friends.

The mirror talk is when you, me, all tell ourselves that this will pass, the struggle of whatever you are contending with will pass. That you have the ability to endure the difficulties of the coming day. As Hamlet said, you can fight through the slings and arrows that are coming. Mirror talks. We all have them. Even those people who are about to be the very cause of your problems. Even those people who are the subject of your own moment of self and actual reflection (unless you’re a vampire. No mirror reflection with vampires because, you know, folklore, Hollywood and all).

Mirror talks. The guy I heard say this didn’t seem the type to have mirror talks. Big. Strong. Imposing. In command. The kind of person that enters a room and eyes fall on them. I don’t think anyone would think this guy would be the kind to have mirror talks. But that’s what made his words so powerful. Because we are all the same. The perceived strong. The perceived weak. The rich. The poor. The liberal. The conservative. The vaccinated and the unvaccinated. The black man and the white man. Though we look different on the outside, we all bleed the same when you prick us.

Mirror talks. I had a good summer. But a sad one. I wrote. I wrote a lot. Finished editing one novel - an extremely personal tale about the afterlife and who goes where and why we tell ourselves that’s how it is. I wrote half of another - this one a horror story about the abuses our children suffer. I completed three separate short stories and entered them into contests. Don’t much care if I win. That’s not why I wrote them. One was about God and the Devil holding palaver about how humans have F-worded up everything. Sorry if the concept of the F word offends any delicate sensibilities. But it’s true. We have F-worded up everything and words are just words. Letters and syllables. People give them power and sway. The second story was about a school bus driver. A quarter century on the job and he’s running his route and lamenting what’s become of his hometown. This third and final was about a politician who divides a nation with fear and demagoguery and later on sees he’s only succeeded in destroying what he thought he loved. Writing all of this came out of deep and personal part of my soul and it made me tap into a part of me that sometimes I wish I never did.

I also worked at a local food pantry as I helped my daughter complete service hours for honors classes at her high school. She’s 15. Not old enough to drive, so dad played chauffeur. The need of so many just broke my heart. And when I learned one of the homes we delivered to was witness to a headline making murder over the last few weeks, well, that lead me to a lot of mirror talks.

Then I was part of something that brought news back to the town. We launched a new online news journal and I found old friends and new ones. I told folks when I decided to go back into this old world, that world that can be wonderful and impactful and can make true and real difference, that I didn’t want to profit off of human misery. I didn’t want to make money off the old saying in this business that “if it bleeds it leads.” I wanted to tell uplifting stories and let people know that there is indeed good in this world and it is worth fighting for. And that’s what I have been able to do. But all of this. All of this creativity and service just left me with a hollow spot. More mirror talks. More questions of why.

Mirror talks. So I’m winding this thought down and I know it’s been long. Funny. I had a student tell me once that I write too long and that goes against “everything you taught us, Beavers, about communicating effectively and efficiently.” Then I said: when I write long I’m not writing for you - I’m writing for me. So, that’s a lot of words to say just something simple - we are all alike, y’all. To remind myself of that. All of us. It doesn’t matter what God you pray to or what politician you voted for or whether you wear a mask or cause a scene at Walmart because you refuse. We all have mirror talks. The rich. The poor. Black and white. Democrat and republican. Muslim and Christian. LSU fans and Alabama fans. Your boss. Your enemy. Your friend. The criminal and the victim.

In a world of hate and the crap I see on Facebook, I have to remember we all are the same. All of us. Everyone has mirror talks because everyone is vulnerable in those early, intimate early morning moments.

All children of God. All human beings. All different shades of flesh but the same color blood.

Mirror talks. So if I had one wish on a Saturday morning as I wait in the longest line I have ever seen to get my oil changed, it would be to help me remember that every time I’m having a mirror talk that so too are you.

And that might make me a little bit better of a person. A little bit kinder. A little bit more who I know God wants me to be.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

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