A Good Mirror

When N. and I started our relationship, I lived in Canada and he lived in Indiana. He couldn’t cross the border because of his visa issues, so I came to stay with him in Indiana. One thing I really loved about his apartment was this amazing bathroom mirror. It looked a little ratty because the entire apartment was a cheap, grad student kind of place.

But that ratty mirror showed me the best reflection of myself I had ever seen. Whenever I looked into it, I saw a stunning movie-star-like person with luminous eyes, amazing body, and perfect hair.

All I wanted was to find a mirror like that for my own apartment in Montreal but I couldn’t find anything of the kind no matter how much I searched in Canadian stores.

Then N. graduated and moved to Baltimore for his new job. I was sorry to leave our apartment in Lafayette, Indiana. It especially pained me to leave the magical mirror behind.

However, the moment we walked into N.’s Baltimore apartment, I realized that the mirror there was as perfect as the one we’d left in Lafayette. Once again, I saw this impossibly beautiful reflection of myself that mirrors elsewhere were incapable of providing.

That was when I realized that I looked so good in those mirrors because N. was around to make me feel more beautiful than I did anywhere else. He was turning the mirrors magical for me.

And it turned out that I was doing the same to his reflection.