Recognizing Myself

When you look at yourself in the mirror, who do you see?

Yes, obviously it's you, looking back at yourself. But when you imagine yourself, without a mirror to help you, do you picture the person that you see every day? Or do you remember yourself from days gone by?

I'm now in my 60s but sometimes I can't get my head around that number. I'm now older than my mother was when our second daughter was born: I'm less than three years away from the age that my dad was when he died.

When I was younger, I resembled my mom and her side of the family more than I resembled the Brown side of the family. My sisters have had more of a Brown resemblance, though you could—and still can—see my mom in them.

I was recently looking at old high-school photos, and I came across my Grade 9 photo. Looking at that kid's face, I don't see myself at all: at least, not the person I've ever imagined I was. I suppose, at the time, when I saw that photo for the first time, I acknowledged that, yup, that was me, but there's also something that bubbles up from within me that has always felt that photo didn't capture the true essence of me.

It was close, but I wasn't totally buying it.

When I lived in South Korea, from 1997 to 1999, there were people who cut my hair, who never really captured who I was. My barber, Valerie, who I had for many years before I moved abroad, knew who I was, knew how to make me look like who I thought was the real me.

My Korean barbers never gave me a bad haircut. They simply gave me somebody else's cut.

As I've aged, my looks have changed so much that I can hold a photo of my young self next to a recent photo and think that these two images are of different people. Where my looks used to be a closer resemblance to the aunts and uncles on my mother's side, I've now grown into my father's face.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I saw one of my kayaking videos and thought my dead dad had somehow made his way into my boat, with my hat and clothes. And sometimes, in the morning, when I'm getting showered and dressed for the day, I see my dad staring back at me in the mirror.

It freaks the hell out of me.

So, I now look at the old photos of me and I think, who is this person? Where has he gone?

One of these days, I'm going to take a photo of myself, with the intent of capturing the essence of who I think I am. And with luck, when I look at that photo, I'll recognize myself.

Happy Thursday!