Who are you?

Do we see ourselves the way others see us? I am startled sometimes at the softer, fuller face that stares back at me from photos. I don't remember when the laugh lines became laugh furrows, or how the weight that I seem to lose 50 pounds at a time (or not at all) always manages to come back...and then some.

"Who gave this strange woman permission to pose as me?," I ask.

I have an unreasonable urge to destroy photos so no one can see. And, then I realize, this is what people see every day. No one else is surprised. Just me.

So, I look closer at the familiar stranger. Those eyes. Not quite blue. Not quite green. If they are, indeed, a window to the soul, they show only a smudged shadow of my devotion and the smallest hint of my despair.

The smile. It still has that crooked quirk that forever stops me from claiming symmetry. My chin is rounder, and my neck has more folds than I think are humanly possible. A crop of white hairs sprout with the tenacity of dandelions at my temples and at the crown of my head.

It is me. And, I wonder, can I be gentle with who I really am?