Mirror money

This evening my friend thanked me for my strength and beauty, for loving myself so much. We spoke of mirrors and self and the power to visualize the reflection as nothing less than greatness, beauty and peace. Today was not one of those days, but her words made me think about the currency of those moments. Last night I danced until three o'clock in the morning. I was beautiful, rhythmic, and enormously fun. Last night. Those few hours of feeling amazing should theoretically take me into today, should earn me enough dividends to sustain this current lapse into poverty. Most days I am able to find the strength to talk back and gaze forward beyond the imperfections. I insist on reveling in my uniqueness, my loveliness, my perfect core. I am drawn to your fire, she said, your realness. As you may already know by now, one of my favorite topics is what is real? Today, this is what real is to me: real is knowing you love me, warming myself with the realness of your words. Realness is remembering that you thought of me before you climbed out of bed this morning as I thought of you before I drifted to sleep. Realness is listening to a song over and over again because it reminds me of our beauty. "Once you are real, you can't be ugly, except to people that don't understand". -Velveteen Rabbit. I never thought loving myself this much would be such hard work. It is work. The job requires moments of inordinate strength as I resist the damage, love the imperfections and move forward. Some days I am flat broke, other days my realness sustains me through another meal.