Becoming Whispers | The Mirror on the Window

I'm walking past a storefront this afternoon, and I catch my reflection in the glass.

Not on purpose. I'm not looking for it. But there I am, mid-stride, and I stop.

Because I look... alive.

Not just present. Not just awake. But alive in a way that's almost startling. My hair is loose and catching the light. My dress fits well. There's color in my cheeks from the walk, and I'm standing straighter than I used to.

But it's more than that.

I can see it in my face, the way my eyes are engaged with the world, the way I'm looking at things like they matter, like I'm feeling them deeply. I look like someone who notices everything. Someone who feels profoundly. Someone whose aliveness is big and present and impossible to miss.

I look like someone who's here. Fully here. With all of her depth showing.

And then I notice something else.

There's a woman across the street, and she's looking at me.

Not staring. Not leering. Just... looking. The way people look when they notice something, or someone, that catches their attention. Like she can see what I just saw. Like my aliveness is visible to her too.

And I feel it immediately.

The shift. The awareness. The way my body responds before my mind can catch up.

I want to disappear.

Not consciously. Not deliberately. But I can feel it, the way my shoulders curl forward, the way I turn slightly away, the way I'm suddenly aware of how exposed I am. Not just visible, exposed.

Because she's not just seeing me. She's seeing me alive. She's seeing the depth, the intensity, the way I engage with the world so fully it shows on my face. She's seeing all of it.

And that feels like too much.

I want to make myself smaller. I want to pull my coat tighter, tuck my chin, dim the aliveness I just saw in the glass. I want to make my face neutral, my presence ordinary, my depth invisible.

The old instinct. The one that learned being fully alive, fully feeling, fully present, fully engaged, was too much for people. That my intensity needed to be hidden. That the safest thing was to shrink, to fade, to make my aliveness manageable.

And then I catch myself.

I'm standing here, in front of this window, wanting to hide from the very aliveness I just saw in the glass.

I'm doing it again.

I'm trying to dim myself because someone's eyes found me. I'm trying to erase what I just saw, the woman who looks alive, awake, deeply engaged, because being seen as that fully alive feels like exposure. Like she can see my depth, my intensity, my capacity for feeling, and it's too much to display.

I breathe.

I let my shoulders stay where they are. I don't turn away. I don't cross the street.

I look back at my reflection, not at her, at me, and I see her again. The woman who looks alive. The woman who's here. Fully here. With all her depth showing.

And I realize: She doesn't need to dim just because someone notices her.

She's real whether she's seen or not. Whether someone can see her depth or not.

Whether her intensity is comfortable for others or not.

The aliveness I saw in the glass isn't something I need to hide. It's something I am. My depth, my capacity for feeling, my profound engagement with the world, none of it needs to be diminished to be safe.

I start walking again, and I don't shrink as I pass the woman on the corner.

I just walk. Alive. Here. Visible.

Not hiding my depth. Not dimming my intensity. Just being it.

And that's enough.