I looked in the mirror, truly looked, for the first time in a while yesterday. I saw myself as someone I didn't want to be and wanted to do something about it. I looked myself in the eye in that mirror and saw in peripheral vision the form of a person that I couldn't believe I'd become. I saw the weight I'd piled on since school started back. I saw the puffy eyes from lack of sleep. I saw the zits and scars and body hair of a typical unpopular teenager. And I had to do something about it.

I looked in that mirror and my reflection told me, "Barf it up. You don't get addicted to anything. You can stop anytime," and at first it sounded like a good idea. But of course, it's not. I know it's not. All that mumbo-jumbo I heard in school has sunk in over the years. I know I should be happy with the body I've got, so why aren't I?

Yeah, so some gay guy who used to drool over my best friend is now drooling over me. So I've got a voice that people would kill for. So I'm a good student. What does all that matter in a world where everything important is based on looks?

So I look back in the mirror and my reflection tells me, "Oh, c'mon. You can get any guy you want. So you've got child-bearing hips. You know how they think."

But I don't want to be some object. I want to be a person and I want that person to be me. I just want a different body. I don't want these breasts sagging some time in the future. I don't want these hips to be my only ploy. I don't want these legs to make me walk like a penguin. I don't want to wake up 20 years from now and realize that I could have had it all if only I'd been thin. When was the last time you saw someone on Broadway with a pear shape?

And I hear my reflection speak again. "You're not listening. If you're not happy, go on a crash diet... go get lipo... stick that finger down your throat then get in there and exercise until your bones are wearing through your skin and you can't tell the difference between thin and fat anymore." I want to think my reflection isn't saying what it feels, but that wasn't sarcasm. That was truth.

And I look in the mirror again and miss that eye contact. I see my hips and wonder when my waist got so small. I look at my legs and know that once I shave, they'll be fine. I know that my scars will all be tales to tell 20 years later when I'm happy doing whatever it is I'm doing. Then I meet her eye to eye. My reflection... that liar. What does she know? There's no brain there. It's here in me. So, I've thought and now I know that the mirror doesn't make me who I am. I do.

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