Living Life Without a Full-Length Mirror

This title sounds like a fun little tagline to something, but I can assure you… it is very much my reality.

When my husband and I moved to the U.K. this autumn for a six-month project at his work, we brought just the essentials. We figured we could buy whatever we needed there. Once we arrived, I noticed right away that there was no full-length mirror in our flat. Only a mirror that hung above the sink, reflecting back our heads and half of our torsos. That’s all, folks.

I was immediately worried about this. No mirror! The horror! This needs to be fixed at once!

But then one week turned to two weeks. Two weeks turned to two months. And I became used to living life without a full-length mirror. It was nice to not scrutinize every roll and fold. I no longer cared if my clothing was a bit baggy or a tad too tight. I realized, slowly, that for the first time, I was having less and less thoughts about my body altogether.

My Quest for Body Neutrality

I am quickly approaching my thirties (!!), which means that I grew up alongside the technology that surrounds us today. That also means that I was around for the terrifying ‘thinspo’ days in the early 2000s (though thankfully managing to avoid any long-term damage) to now being embraced by the body positivity days that emerged in the 2010s.

Comparing the two, it is very easy to view thinspo as a horrific blizzard outside, and body positivity as a warm blanket and hot cup of cocoa by the fireplace. Of the two, I’m taking the cocoa. Every. Single. Time.

However, there are drawbacks to the body positivity movement. This blog post is not a critical analysis of the movement — to be honest, you can find so many great ones online.

Rather, this blog post is a way for me to sit here, at 29 years old, and declare that I am tired of thinking about my body all the time. Anyone else?

“Not My Color”

Thinking about our body can be more than just thinking about its actual shape or size. For instance, I’ve had numerous people in my life — all women — tell me they don’t wear specific colors because they look “bad” in them. I once had a boss who said she never wore red because it wasn’t her color. She was 60 years old.

Imagine that. We have such limited time to live our one life on this floating rock in the universe, one of many universes, and there are people using that precious time to stay away from a color because… it’s… not ‘their color’? What!!!! WHAT!!!!!

I’ve never once looked at someone and thought, “That is not their color.” Ever.

And I know that some people are very into color analysis to figure out their undertones and which season they are and hey, as a creative outlet, I think that’s fine. Even fun. But listen, I don’t want to spend my life avoiding colors. I don’t want to be so conscious of my image that I turn away from an outfit because of the color or miss out on a fun activity because I’m afraid I’ll look dumb doing it. What is the point? Release. That. Fear.

My ultimate dream is to successfully embrace “body neutrality.” The body positivity movement came into my life when I needed it most to help disembark any toxic, negative thoughts pre-teen me programmed into my brain. It lifted me up and I am grateful. Very, very. I love that bodies of all shapes and sizes can be highlighted, celebrated, and appreciated. We’ve come a long way.

But I’m over seeing “You’re beautiful!” “Your body is perfect!” “Look in the mirror and love what you see!” As Lindsay King-Miller once wrote for Bitch in 2014: “Today’s body positivity focuses too much on affirming beauty and not enough on deconstructing its necessity.”

At this point, I’m exhausted of being reminded over and over of my body. I kind of just want to… exist. I want to go through my day and have little to no passing thoughts about my body. I wonder — is this possible? The body positivity movement is definitely built around women. So then I wonder — on average, do men move through their day feeling neutral about their bodies?

Again: We have a short time to live this life. The fact that we were ever born is nothing short of a miracle. I don’t want to spend my next 10, 20, 30 years complaining about love handles or obsessing over how my double chin moves. Because it doesn’t matter? I don’t know. Maybe by chasing body neutrality, I’m chasing the impossible.

But I know this: living life the last two and a half months without a full-length mirror has shown me that there are things we can do to help ourselves think less about our bodies. (Getting off of most social media was another big step, but maybe that’s a blog post for another day…)

Perhaps what I need to do is more things that get me out of my head, get me out of my body, and focusing on whatever is here and now. Like when I read a really good book. When I write a really good story. When dusk casts a dreamy glow on everything in sight. When fireflies flicker like starlight in nearby fields. When I make a new friend laugh. When I hear a favorite song for the first time in years, and remember all the words.

Away from me, away from this temporary body I’m borrowing for this lifetime.

More of that, please.

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