This is NOT the way I look in the mirror!
I joined a Toastmasters group a few months ago and I love going to the meetings and making new friends. I’m a fairly good public speaker and have never been nervous speaking in front of an audience, but I have improved my delivery and my listening skills.
What I’ve come to hate about the experience are the photographs. Each week, the person who writes the electronic newsletter includes candid shots of different members, with funny captions or dialogue clouds. It’s all in fun and never mean spirited, but I’ve come to realize that cameras are NOT my friends — at least not when I’m on the lens side of one.
I’m a fat 60-year-old woman with very little fashion sense. Which is NOT a terrible thing! In fact, it has many advantages and I honestly would NOT change places with some skinny 20-something obsessed with design labels (no, really!). But the person captured by the camera at those meetings doesn’t look remotely like the “me” I see in my mind’s eye, or even the mirror.
I swear, I look in the mirror and I don’t see the wrinkles. Yes, I have smile lines all over the place, but they’re not wrinkles. And when I look in the full length mirror, I see a heavy set woman who carries it well, like the plump Venus in Rubens’ paintings, only more mature. My clothes may be polyester and the labels itch more than they impress, but they seem to hang well in the reflection, and I’m always nicely color coordinated.
Then I look at the photos. Who is that frumpy round person with the droopy jowls? Don’t they have a dress code in Toastmasters? Is that a roll of fat, or is that woman wearing a spare tire around her middle? OH NO! That’s me. But it can’t be. Do I really have that many chins? Do my boobs actually sag that far down? Is it true that my clothes look like something the Goodwill store wouldn’t accept?
In my more lucid moments, I realize my capacity for self-deception borders on delusional, but I don’t care. I prefer what I see in my imagination to what the cold, hard eye of the camera sees. Perhaps, if I radiate my inner image strongly enough, others will see it as well.
In the meantime, I’m going to avoid cameras at all cost … unless I’m BEHIND instead of in front of them.
“I swear, I look in the mirror and I don’t see the wrinkles. Yes, I have smile lines all over the place, but they’re not wrinkles. And when I look in the full length mirror, I see a heavy set woman who carries it well, like the plump Venus in Rubens’ paintings, only more mature. My clothes may be polyester and the labels itch more than they impress, but they seem to hang well in the reflection, and I’m always nicely color coordinated.”
That’s certainly the person I see! It’s so easy to be unkind to ourselves, especially when we’re faced with something like a (in our opinion) bad photograph. But I’ll be honest, I don’t see any of those horrible things you’re seeing.
You’re doing great!