I didn’t expect a museum mirror to speak louder than most people in my life.
Framed in mahogany, engraved in gold, Adrian Piper’s Everything #4 waited quietly until I stood in front of it.
I took a photo. But it didn’t feel like a selfie. It felt like a warning.
It’s easy to forget how much we perform when we look into mirrors. Adjust. Pose. Smile. Hide. But this one? This one didn’t play along. It didn’t ask for aesthetics. It demanded honesty. The kind that forces you to see not who you want to be, but who you’ve been avoiding.
As I took a hard look at the phrase “Everything will be taken away”, I can’t help but wonder what conversation this piece of art is trying to strike with me. What was it igniting? Was it mocking me?
Last year, I watched a “golden opportunity” rot in real time because I wouldn’t script someone else’s redemption arc with my pen. They called it a project. I call it a performance, and I wasn’t about to play supporting ghost for someone’s hero complex. The money? Irrelevant. The contract? Blessedly airtight, like a saint’s relic under lock and stained glass.
Or was it the fact that, before one surgery could even happen, I had to make sure a mysterious mass wasn’t something dramatic. It wasn’t. Just two surgeries in three months. My body didn’t get a break. Neither did my spirit.
Speaking of spirit, you know who decided to become one? My best friend and gossip bitch. He left this plane with a kind of audacity I still haven’t forgiven. I now keep a list of songs and bands I can’t play unless I’m ready to fall apart.
Oh, Maureen. It could be worse. You have your health, your family, and a roof over your head.
That’s what I always tell myself. Not today though. I don’t want to think about silver linings. I don’t want to think about glasses half full. How could I when I am left with lead linings and empty glasses?
Shall I be grateful my world only half-collapsed instead of imploding entirely? It’s not comfort. It’s dismissal dressed as wisdom.
How egotistical of me?! As I look in the mirror, I realize it’s a cheap way to dodge my own pain while sitting in the discomfort of it.
I tell no one.
I say nothing.
Everything will be taken away.
When, though?
