The Mirror - Updated

Charlottesville, Virginia

April 27, 2020

If you have read my other blog posts, you have likely concluded that I am on a journey. It's a journey that I would have preferred to start a long time ago, but it is what it is. I am fortunate to have a wonderful family and great friends who thought I was OK, even when inside I thought I was not. That damn mental chatter that I believed.

I came across this "poem" this morning. I know I wrote it because while there is a rhyme in each stanza, the measure is way off - like in all my poems! I don't know when I wrote this, but I am sure it was within the past three years. I'm sharing it for grins (you can laugh at my inability to write a poem and my jumping between the first, second and third person) but also because .... well, I like it. It reveals something that I am proud of.

You gaze into your old mirror

And think you are not good enough

That others are just plain better

That you are just not up to snuff.

I have been there and I know

Your thinking is all too wrong

it is time to make a change

To dance to an upbeat song.

That bad negative voice in your head

Tis time for it to begone, to scram

Replace it with "Be Young, Be Foolish

Be Happy" by Joe Pope and the Tams.

Your mindset's in in the wrong place

Carol Dweck would say it is fixed

We must use a new growth mindset

then we begin our life remix.

Where to begin this change?

Well, it starts with your mind.

Remember each new day

To you always be kind.

Are you the smartest, prettiest,

The most talented of them all?

You are not. No one is. Sorry.

Now is time to tear down that wall!

Trust in yourself, my friend

You have So much to share

Once you start down this path

You'll be happy, I swear.

Follow your values

Let them lead the way.

You will be amazed

Every single day.

You will replace those negative thoughts

With feelings of happiness and joy

And then you'll be off to the races

You'll wake each morning and say "Oh, boy!"