When Mom Takes a Selfie

Do you ever look in the mirror and not recognize yourself? The other day I took a selfie and didn’t recognize myself. I mean, of course it was me, but looking at my captured face all still and ready to be studied, it didn’t match what I think of myself as looking like.

I was having a conversation once about “the best time of your life.” My companion and I came to the conclusion that we each hoped that every decade of our lives will become “the best years of my life,” only to be replaced by the next decade. We started out talking about how much we enjoyed college, but how we hope that wasn’t “the best” already done, since it’s over! I hoped the rest of my twenties would be at least as great. I hoped my thirties would be even better. I hope my forties will be even better. Et cetera. I love to reminisce and relive memories—I have kept thousands of pages of journals and scrapbooks and could spend hours flipping through them if real life didn’t call me away—but I hope that as I grow up and mature and learn more about myself and the world, I will still be “living my best life”—even as what that looks like changes over time—for decades to come.

Somehow this optimism about “getting old” is stuck in the mental realm for me, though. Yes, college was amazing. The rest of my twenties was even better! I’ve only been 30 for a month, so I can’t speak much about my experience there yet, but I’m excited for what lies ahead of me. However, when I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t love what I see as much as I love the life I’m living. This body has made babies and it is taking me on adventures and it’s what gives my kids hugs and feels their kisses. Objectively, I know it is good. And it’s getting older, just like my mind is. I am ready for my brain and emotions to mature, yet I’m resistant to my body showing signs of maturing.

I don’t take many selfies. I’m just weird enough as a millennial that I don’t have Instagram and therefore just don’t find reasons to take them. I do take them with my kids sometimes, because they smile more sweetly if they can see themselves than if I point the back of my phone at them, but I’m talking about just-me selfies. But, occasionally, I need a profile picture for a new app I’m using to share liturgical living ideas with friends from a different part of the state, and none of the pictures of myself on my phone that could be immediately uploaded are of “just me,” so I need to take a selfie. In these times, I always just take a bunch in a row, then go through and delete the ones where my smile is awkward or my eyes were looking at my eyes on screen instead of at the camera, and then narrow down to an acceptable one from there (or take more because I don’t like any of them, and start over).

Such an incident arose last week. The kids were all playing happily at the park, so I took a few moments to try to get a decent selfie. It surprised me, looking at them. I got glasses for vision correction for the very first time this past June, and I’m still not used to seeing them on my face in photos. I see them in the mirror daily, but not in pictures. It’s just still weird. And then my hair was in a plain old ponytail (“mom hair”—what can you do…butts need to be wiped or food needs to be cooked and why bother pulling it back down once it’s up?), with the little front hairs all a-curl and a-frizz at the edges of my face, because it’s awfully humid in southeast Texas, even in November, so what’s the point of using my hair dryer at all, and all those hairs fell out while breastfeeding the toddler when she was a baby, but they’re back now and just long enough to curl and frizz. And my complexion was so pale, and my lips could have done with some color, and I didn’t even have any earrings in—again with the toddler, it’s just not a safe habit to be in with her curiosity and grabby hands—and there were just the faintest traces of what are going to be wrinkles soon enough.

All I could think was, “I look old.” Then I corrected myself, “I look old for me. I look older than I’m used to thinking of myself as looking.” I still have a self image of me at like 22. Peak worldly beauty. I was a good-looking bride, I’ll admit to that. (Lol! Don’t call me out for humility, I need to love my body when and where I can. It’s hard being a woman in our society. It’s hard to feel woman “enough.”)

I don’t know why I am ready to be 30, but not ready to look 30. There is absolutely no reason to need to look 20-something. I have my three children with me most of the time, I already have an adoring husband and an attached healthy, loving relationship with him, and my value as a person actually comes from being made in the image and likeness of God, which is inherent and doesn’t change with age. But I’m sooo steeped in this culture where women do seem to be valued for their physical beauty, and I don’t always feel beautiful, even though my husband tells me I am literally every day, and my God tells me I always am because He made me. Society tells me I need more makeup and less body fat. And I’m not trying to listen to it, but I just can’t seem to tune it out.

Most of the time, I am happy about my body. I have plenty of clothes that fit and that I feel good in. My husband reminds me multiple times a day that he loves how I look. I am so thankful that my body is healthy and generally working how it’s supposed to, minus the occasional mild, unexplained back pain. Welcome to no longer being “young adult” but rather simply “adult,” no? Most of the time, I’m actually not thinking about it.

But sometimes it just sneaks up on me—like when I take my once-every-few-months selfie—that I don’t look how I used to look. And it’s not always a pleasant surprise. I suppose I will get used to my “thirties look” sometime in the next few years. It’s probably how my kids will remember their childhood Mommy. They’ll all have been somewhere between age 1 and age 15 during my thirties. (Ugh, a whole ’nother can of worms: my tiny babies growing into teenagers. Spare me the worry of thinking about it today; I’m certainly not ready for that first gray hair.)

“God created mankind in His image; in the image of God He created them; male and female he created them.” -Genesis 1:27

“I praise you, because I am wonderfully made.” -Psalm 139:14

“The Lord delights in you.” -Isaiah 62:4 

Do you struggle with your self-image as you get older, too? Where do you turn to remind yourself of the Truth of your self-worth when you need it?