Everyday I find myself looking in the mirror with a slightly tilted head, furrowing my brow as I force out the question to My Reflection once again, a question I’m sure it’s sick of hearing.

“Am I crazy?” I ask.

“Nope.” My Reflection answers with a twiddling of thumbs, “Not at all. I think you question far beyond your capabilities; perhaps you think I haven’t given you the answer. I suggest you stop asking, otherwise you’ll become the question rather than the answer you want.”

I then usually find myself standing there for quite some time wondering whether I should listen to My Reflection, and stop asking. Strangely I don’t find the subject of myself talking to My Reflection weirdly whimsical until hours after the fact.

Even so, why would I ask that day after day? It’s starting to feel like asking if a zebra is white with black stripes or black with white stripes. It’s beginning to seem as if I’m trying to wheedle down the purpose of my existence, as if what is on the outside is different underneath. The depth of myself is something I question constantly. Am I one being, composed of many masks? Or am I several, all compacted into one skinny, scraggly girl? During these moments of pondering I often find myself flying through the seas, unable to stay focus on one topic or one dream. So, I’d probably have to say I don’t have the attention span to stay focused on my own psyche long enough to figure out the answer, and I’m starting to see that’s the point. When wandering you’re not suppose to wonder where you’re wandering to; it rather seems to defeat the purpose. When you go out wandering, popping out of the stars and not having any idea of where you are or how you got there is the surprise twist you never saw coming! And whether scary, sad, silly, enlightening or stupidly enlightening, it’s always a fantastic way to get from one place to another.

(Lighting the candle on my desk seems a waste, as is wearing reading glasses that don’t really help me think or see any better. But maybe I should let myself be a little stupid from time to time.)

But back to the questionable theory at hand! My Reflection and I constantly do battle with the thoughts of who is who and what is what, and why it all matters other than the answer that it should. I’d like to believe it doesn’t. That the stars are magic, the grass is what color I want it to be and that people are capable of bending spoons with their minds because, heck! That’d just be cool! But let’s be smart here, whether or not those things are true doesn’t mean they are real at this present moment in time. So just because today I feel like a masked invader doesn’t mean tomorrow I won’t be. Maybe today I am someone different, but, from what I know right now I feel like me, look like me, type like me, and have this annoying habit of fiddling with things while I’m thinking just like me. So let’s just go with the idea that I am me, and that I just like to pretend that these things I wonder about are relevant. Yes, I think that will do. Let’s not go overboard here, if we’re going to say the sky is blue let’s just stick with blue. If it turns out to be something different we can all have a good laugh about it later.

“NONSENSE!” I hear My Reflection bellow over my shoulder into my ear.

“AH!” I yelp, turning to see My Reflection so smugly smirking at me, lounged over the back of my chair, “How’d you get over here?!” I exclaim, for it isn’t often My Reflection leaves the appeal of the mirror.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” says My Reflection smugly, digging through my desk drawers and nosing through my writings, the tossing, fiddling, and mess beginning.

(I quickly grab one of my more expensive picture frames from atop my stereo and place it facedown next to me; My Reflection’s never known to be careful, or considerate.)

“Listen to you go!” laughs My Reflection, now presently standing atop the stove, digging through the upper cupboards, hair sticking upward and slight-pointed ears waggling, nose and fingers investigating. She swings-in-turn to me and larks, free-limbed as a cat, ticking off on her fingers glibly. “You, trying to be all practical like and grownup. Your room is tidy, you’ve got a checkbook, clean dishes and a biography about Gandhi on your bookshelf! See how many spoons you have? Nobody needs this many spoons! And this refrigerator! What are these? Vegetables? Well, aren’t you just Mrs. Proper Pants… Look! Your jeans don’t have holes in them! Shameful!” My Reflection in this moment pauses, having entered the hallway, and standing in front of my line of shoes, astonished, asks, “Are those high heels?”

“Yes!” I shout, getting frustrated for I’m trying to write about nonsense, “I can’t spend my whole life wearing around light up-sneakers or ducky slippers!”

“How do you walk in them?” asks My Reflection in slight puzzlement and awe, squatted down, eyes wide in wonder.

“I don’t really know, I think the secret lies between pain is beauty and being an idiot.” I answer.

“You mean vanity.” My Reflection states offhandedly, while making shadow puppets with my shoes on the wall.

“Yeah, whatever.” I say with an eye roll.

Dealing with My Reflection in questions of philosophy, inner self, and rhetoric is easy to put up with. But in black and white topics of my insecurities and self-consciousness, that’s when My Reflection really bugs me sometimes.

I hate it when My Reflections right.