Mirror of Erised

I love history. Family history especially. One of my very favorite hobbies is going through old family letters and documents with my dad from my grandparents and great-grandparents. I see huge value and enjoyment in getting to know the people who came before, and in understanding the lives that shaped my own. My husband, on the other hand, is a total futurist. He would happily talk all day about new technologies or ways that education or society will change. He will never fully understand my love for looking back, and I will never fully understand his love for looking forward.

Over the Christmas holiday my dad and sister pulled out boxes of old VHS tapes of our life. We settled in for our own family film festival, reliving family reunions, beach trips, school plays, school dances – so many moments captured on film.

I was struck by so many things as I watched.

In several of these videos, my parents were close in age to where I am now in life. Wow. It was so fun to see them that way, and enlightening to realize that already had teenagers by the time they were my age. Perhaps inevitably, one wonders if we were the same age at the same time, would we hang out? Would we be friends? It's hard to imagine being strangers, but fun to think about.

I felt sad to have lost touch with some dear friends from that time in my life. We are “Facebook friends” now, but the truth is I really liked some of these people and although “way leads on to way,” I wish we had stayed closer. Of course, of all of the times in our world, this has been the season of video calls…maybe it’s time to set up some dates.

And (because this blog is about alopecia, after all) I was struck that instead of saying to my son, “honey, look! There’s Mommy as a kid,” what I immediately said was “honey, look at Mommy’s hair! That’s my real hair!” Hmmm.

I admit that I absolutely feasted on images of my younger self. Thick hair pulled into a French twist for prom. Long eyelashes. My real eyebrows. I felt so happy/sad about it. Happy to see it and to remember what once was. Sad to realize that I have lived longer without those things than I did with them. Happy to be able to show my son what I looked like. Sad that it was so important to me for him – and my husband – to see it.

I was also surprised by the number of times I deflected the attention of the camera. Playing the piano – “turn it off!” Getting ready for dances – “turn the camera off!” Interesting. I have long wondered whether my allergic reaction to unsought attention was caused by alopecia…apparently not. The thing is, watching myself complain about the camera being on while I played piano, it is super obvious that I wanted the attention but didn’t know how to just allow it and enjoy it. I also don’t for a second think I didn’t want to be filmed in my pretty prom dresses… but I wonder why I deflected and made such a big deal about the camera. I do think that alopecia has exacerbated my tendency to shy away from being seen, but perhaps there’s more to it. Food for thought.

As I’m reflecting on this experience of looking backward in time, I am reminded that while there certainly value in remembering and appreciating what once was, it’s not healthy to get stuck there. It’s too easy to let it become a “Mirror of Erised” (a magic mirror in Harry Potter which shows the most desperate desire of a person’s heart) and become trapped looking backward. Maybe my husband is onto something after all with his love for all things future. There is energy in looking forward, in imagination, in anticipation. There is fun in possibility!

Have you ever found yourself stuck looking backward? What have you done to loosen that stance and turn in a new direction?