Because sometimes I feel lucky to glimpse at myself in a mirror and not dislike what I see, I thought long and hard about my resolution for 2019. At my last session mid-December, my therapist advised me to focus more on how I experience myself, particularly when it came to the subject of mirrors. Over Christmas week I found myself less afraid of beholding my own image. In fact, for the first time, recently, I looked at myself in the mirror and decided I would no longer torture my body into framing itself as an ideal.

What do you see in your reflection? When I was young I only saw what I wanted to be. Fairer. Curvier. More sensuous. It has taken me almost 30 years to come to terms with my appearance; to not wonder if I looked pleasing to someone else, but to confront my image as my own, in whatever form it took. "I want to embrace my flaws," I told a dear friend who was visiting for lunch at my sister's place. She said something wise about flaws, with which I agreed, on principle, but I was speaking about embracing the very notion of one's flaws and imperfections. Is it not possible for us to also be our weaknesses as much as we are the embodiment of our strengths?