my doppelganger
look in the mirror, she’s old
shocked, I still feel young
senryu by M. Nakazato LaFreniere
I get the Oscar Wilde’s story of Dorian Grey. The man stays young while the painting ages. Sometimes though, I feel like it’s a true story. I look in the mirror and the person in the mirror keeps aging. It’s natural but sometimes it doesn’t feel like me because inside I still see myself back in my late twenties/early thirties.
I think when Jack Benny got stuck on 39, the joke resonated because inside so many of us have a certain age that our internal image froze at. It’s not an age we wish to be stuck at or wish we still looked like (although we might wish it). It’s just an internal vision that exists. And sometimes when we look in the mirror, that internal vision and external clashes. Who is that person in the mirror? That doppelganger? That’s not me. I don’t look like that. Do I?
I think it’s interesting too, that our friends or partners may still see us at the earlier age even as they see us as we are now like an overlay. Maybe that’s what it is. We see ourselves through layers of time overlaid in the present.
Do you know what I mean?
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References:
Doppelganger
daily prompts, daily post
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