Mirror

The night I couldn't pretend anymore.

2003. I’m 22.

I didn’t recognize the girl staring back at me.

I’d been up for days and my mind was scrambled. I paced inside my small bedroom at my parents’ house, head down, trying to take the edge off.

A movement caught my attention and I looked up. I began staring. Who was I looking at? I didn’t recognize her. Who was that looking back at me? I stepped closer, and then another step, my eyes locked, not blinking. I came within an inch and stared deeply.

Big brown eyes once full of life were black.

Empty.

Soulless.

The reflection in the mirror staring back at me gave me a chill down my spine I will never forget. The girl who once had all the dreams was disappearing.

A flash.

The honor-roll student. The swimmer. The friend who passed notes and giggled about the boys we’d marry and how we’d raise our kids next door to each other. The one who dreamed of college.

That girl no longer existed.

Empty.

I blinked hoping it wasn’t real. But it was.

I could see it happening right in front of me. The choices I was making, the way I was living, the things I was numbing, they were slowly destroying my life. For the first time, I couldn’t pretend anymore.

I was going to die. Maybe not that day, maybe not tomorrow. Death didn’t seem like the worst idea. Maybe if I just kept going as is, I would “disappear,” and life could go on without me.

I knew I needed to stop. I just didn’t know how.

But God did.

And I didn’t see it yet.

- No one is too lost to be saved