Or Have I

When I was in high school, I had trouble focusing on what I should have been focusing on. School work! I tried, honest I did. I would spend hours in my room with my text books and the three holed, loose leaf, lined sheets in front of me. I would diligently find the notation I made about each of my subjects homework for the evening and make a list of which was most important. I would sharpen my pencils even if I didn’t need a pencil and I’d make sure my pens were working. I was ready to get the work done.

You would think that with all of the preparations, I would have gotten my assignments done, which would have translated in good marks from teachers that could tell that I had put in a lot of effort at least. You would think…

What happened after the text books, pencils, paper and the list were ready is that I would look up and see my reflection in the mirror that took up a large portion of the wall in front of the desk. I guess Mom thought the mirror was a good decorating idea, and perhaps it was, just not for a teenage boy. I would look at my face or the blemishes that were there for hours. I would look into my own eyes and try to figure out what colour they were. I’ve been colour retarded since my early teens it seems. I call my eyes brown, but I suppose I would be right to say hazel or greeny brown with flecks of gold and a touch, just a touch of red. Well, that is what they looked like all of those years ago. I would look at my nose which was a bit too large for my face, my ears which were a bit too small for my head and there was something weird about my eyebrows. My hair stuck out in places is should be laying flat and it laid flat when it should have stuck out.

You don’t get to know your face so well if you spend your time reading text books or writing essays. I knew I should cover the mirror, but I was kind of happy that I had a reflection. If I didn’t, that would mean that I was a vampire and for some reason that became important to me. I guess I was caught up in the living dead craze years before everyone else.

I found myself looking at my reflection in the mirror just a while ago. I wasn’t avoiding school work or any kind of work. I have long ago come to know that I am not one of Dracula’s undead minions. My nose is still too big for my face, and my ears are growing to fit my head. I haven’t a clue what colour my eyes are anymore, because it’s hard to tell with the glare from my glasses and without the glasses it’s pretty hard to focus. My hair has finally been trained to do what it is told to do, more or less. No, tonight I was looking at an old guy that was looking back at me.

He looked kind of like that young teenage boy, but this guy had a lot more lines on his face. There are laugh lines that erupt when he smiles and there are lines when his face is at rest. You get old and your face gets wrinkles, no big deal. I was looking at some newer lines that have appeared on my forehead recently. Most of the forehead lines go horizontal, but these new guys are more like the rays of the sun, spreading up across my forehead. I don’t understand where they came from. There is no emotion or way to contort my face that will cause forehead wrinkles like a starburst. I haven’t earned these wrinkles!

…or have I?