The Vanishing Act
Cognitive Dissonance and the Mirror’s Lies
I had a deeply unsettling experience in my bathroom this morning. I walked up to the sink, splashed some water on my face, looked up into the mirror, and honestly wondered who let the nice, silver-haired lady into my house. Given the level of supernatural woo woo that is active in this house, for a moment, I thought I was looking at the true form of one of our beloved ghosties. But no. I was the ghost this time.
Inside my head, I am perpetually thirty-five. I am vibrant, a little dangerous, and entirely convinced that I can still pull off a dramatic exit from a room. My internal ecosystem operates on the assumption that my skin possesses the bounce of a fresh marshmallow. Then I catch my reflection in a store window or under the aggressive, unforgiving fluorescent lights of a public restroom, and the cognitive dissonance hits like a splash of ice water. Or a fire hose of it.
The woman looking back at me has stories etched into the corners of her eyes. She has a jawline that has decided to explore a downward trajectory. She looks lovely, mature, and completely unfamiliar to me.
The Stranger in the Glass
This is the strange vanishing act of aging. It isn’t that we disappear from the world; it is that the person we have always known ourselves to be vanishes behind a curtain of time, replaced by a stranger who has inherited our wardrobe.
It creates a bizarre emotional vertigo. You reach to push back your hair and your hand—which is now oddly spotted with colonies of brown dots that are not cute freckles—looks like your mother’s hand. You catch a glimpse of your profile and realize that gravity is no longer just a theory; it is an active, aggressive landlord collecting rent on your flesh.
Finding the humor in it is sometimes the only thing that saves us from despair. There is an undeniable comedy in watching your body perform tricks it never used to do. The way a deep, dramatic sigh now leaves your mouth when you simply bend over to tie your shoe. The way your knees make a sound like a handful of gravel being thrown against a window when you stand up from a low couch. We are goddesses, yes, but currently, we are goddesses operating under a comedic curse.
Vulnerability is the True Sovereignty
Let us be completely direct here: it isn’t just disarming, it hurts to watch the youth fade from your face. It is a vulnerable thing to admit that you miss the elasticity of your thirties or the effortless energy of your twenties.
I watch people fly up and down staircases and marvel at the Witchcraft they wield as I peck, peck, peck my way to the stairs with my cane, wincing when I have to put pressure on my knee to do so.
Society tells us to fight it, to buy the creams, to freeze the muscles, and to pretend that the numbers on our birth certificates are just a clerical error. To be clear, in my entire life, I have never been a vain person. I was never super pretty. Just ordinary. My Goddess, how I miss ordinary! Caring about how I look is another change that keeps me from feeling like me.
I fully understand and agree that the true power of a goddess doesn’t come from pretending the mirror is lying. It lies in looking that silver-haired stranger directly in the eyes and claiming her anyway. That, my friends, is a work in progress for me. First, I have to get her to stop startling me. I know in twenty years, I will look back at the now me and think about how few wrinkles she had (comparatively).
Realistically, the cognitive dissonance only wins if we agree that the younger version of us was the only version worth knowing. The truth is that the woman in my mirror right now has survived things the thirty-five-year-old version of me couldn’t even fathom. She has buried things, birthed things, built things, and walked through fires (literally) that would have scorched the youthful skin right off her predecessor. She accomplished a lot. She endured a lot. She lived a lot… and she kind of looks like she got put through a wringer.
Reclaiming the Reflection
I know we are not vanishing. That will come when they put our bodies in the ground and we fade into the memories of others rather than the “real” person. I deeply hope they glamorize my memory and make me more than I am. The gilded me could be so much cooler than the real me.
I’m sure there are Hallmark cards that read, “Every wrinkle is a line of dialogue from a life lived out loud. Every soft curve and silver strand is proof of endurance. The external shell is changing, absolutely, but the fire inside the temple remains entirely untouched by the passing of the years.”
That is just so precious and I’m sure it’s true. I’m not turning sixty-five years old in September. I’m turning sixty-five years young and I will look back at people who lean down and speak loudly to me (and likely in a baby voice) and think, “I have cookie sheets older than you are.”
When I look in the glass and find myself wondering where any hint of youthful self wandered of to, I must stop searching for a ghost who is no longer there. She is the one who vanished. I’m still here. I am one of the final expressions of me.
I did not expect it to be this way. I imagined my older self as wise, strong, wizened, even. She’s clever and has witty old lady retorts that no one sees coming because they underestimated her. She’s one they talk about being “sharp as a tack” despite her advancing age. She is the bog witch who is over everybody’s shit and lives to please herself and her clever, nearly human cats.
Of course, a bog witch does not conjure up mental images of “eternal youth,” now, does she?
One of my goals for this year is to work harder to be fully present in each moment rather than thinking on or lamenting the past or focusing on or worrying about the future. I want to be here… now. Part of that involves me reconciling this huge abyss between who I think I am and who I am now. I hope that the old lady who lives in my house likes me.