Mirror, mirror: Tell me, who am I?

I am standing in front of the mirror, gazing intently at the person on the other side. I push my brain cells to recollect any memory of the person I was looking at. But there is none.

The first moment, I stood in front of the mirror; I could see and recognize that it was nobody else but me. The same me, the same traits and the same expressions. As time passed, the similarities decreased. I could hardly recognize the person I was seeing. What happened to the real me? The answer I deduced to the question that came up was I have “Changed”.

Change is the order of the world. We need to change according to the times. The circumstances change us for the best. I knew this, yet the change panicked me. As I see now, the change in me has occurred on the darker side. I realize the circumstances aren’t always glorious but are sometimes dark too, slowly edging us towards a precipice.

The person facing me is a stranger. She is angry, agitated and immensely irritated. She flares up at inopportune times, hurting our loved ones. She is unable to keep her emotions in check. And after all this, she is hit by a guilty conscience so huge, she moves onto a gloomy state and lapses into a silence and for how long, she herself doesn’t know. She sometimes feels that there is another person inside her trying to guide her and these silences are that other person’s work, so that she cannot hurt anyone further. That other person is the real me. I have always been calm, never reacting instantly and hardly ever angry. I take over for sometime. And then, all of a sudden, everything is bright.

Seeking an answer, I ask the mirror: who am I? What have I become? Will these timely and wise interventions by the real me stop eventually? Or will I be able to gather myself up again and shun these sinister traits? I don’t want to change, at least not for the worst. I want to hold on to the good things in me. These changes, I say, happened inadvertently. I never paid much attention. I thought that it was just a passing phase. But now it seems its here to stay. I was awakened by some of the recent appalling incidents. I am glad it did.

I am finding ways to retrace everything. I have a slight idea of what went wrong and what needs to be done, though it is going to be utterly difficult. The one thing I know will help me get through is the belief I have in myself. So now here starts my attempt at amendments.