When I was a kid I made faces in the mirror. I still do on occasion. I would stare at my reflection for hours...make faces, widen my eyes, squint, open and close my mouth to mimic speech…smile, wiggle my eyebrows around. I did it because my face has always seemed...unfamiliar to me. Foreign. I would often forget what I looked like. I still do. Every so often I would pass a mirror, glance at my reflection, and become frightened. Well, not so much frightened. More like startled. I didn't recognize myself with any consistency. There would be this moment of intense confusion and "who the hell is that kid and why is she in HERE?!" It's a very strange feeling...not knowing your own face. What expressions it's making when you try to interact...when you’re off in your head. When…ever.
And it didn’t end there. It wasn’t just a matter of not knowing what my face was doing or how t looked. It stretched out to my limbs and my torso and…just everything. I have spent an obscene amount of time trying to force a mental picture of that jerk in the mirror into my mind. And it IS there, but only just. Like smoke. Easily altered. One stray wind and she’s gone. I’m still trying to become acquainted with the way it feels to “pull” certain faces (mainly because NOT knowing what my face is doing makes other people bombard me with questions or comments…demands that I “wipe that look off of [my] face"). I look less at my face in the mirror lately and more at my arms. Move them into various positions. Swing them about. Try to mimic what others do with their arms and make it feel natural. Progress flows like congealed gravy.
My body has never felt "comfortable". I am assuming that that is how a body should feel. Especially when the body is your own. I have never had that. Comfort in my own skin...with my own limbs. I wear my discomfort like an awful Christmas sweater. Constantly tugging at the collar and pulling the sleeves. Scratching where the itchy tag rests against my neck. All the while trying to get a sense of my body in all of its seemingly disconnected glory. My body...it almost doesn't seem solid (other than those moments where it feels VERY solid, which isn't much better). It seems to be constantly shifting...and vague. Again, like smoke. And I try to fix it without really knowing what exactly it is that I intend to fix. What is broken? That's the real issue. Watching myself, wide eyed and a bit surprised, in mirrors. Jumping, spinning, swinging (and launching myself off). More recently longboarding and pogoing...anything in an attempt to feel tethered to my body.
And it nearly works. It comes so close that it's maddening. For a few hours I feel almost OK. But in the end, my body still feels off. My limbs, awkward and disjointed. They don't fit. I just don't know what to do with them. I don't know where to have them or how to have them where ever that is. I have to consciously arrange my body like furniture. Find places for them to go. Have something to busy my hands or some place to conceal them. And I can feel everything. I can feel my arms, I can feel that my shoulders are always up, whatever expression my face is contorting into at the time. And this is alone. With people it's about a thousand times worse. Arranging myself, trying to remember what a neutral expression feels like, lowering the shoulders to appear less stiff, positioning the legs in a way that feels as close to "natural" as I can get them. It isn't enjoyable, but it's what I do.
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