Mirror, Mirror by Betsy Ashton

What do you see when you look in the mirror? If you're a woman, do you see the young lass you were? Do you see wrinkles and age marks? Do you see your mother looking back at your through your own eyes? I see all this and more.

At one time, I was a young lass. We were all young lasses, but for me that was a few decades ago. I had long, and I mean, long dark hair, was skinny as a fence post, and flat chested as the proverbial pancake. At some point along around the end of the 70s, I cut my hair and permed it to a shoulder-length mop. Yes, this was me circa 1980.

I remember that young woman. I liked her. She had spunk, sassiness and the guts to pose in a bikini. She's still inside me, but the outer shell is a bit changed.

I look in the mirror today and see a few character lines. I do NOT have wrinkles. My hair is white, mostly, and permed. When I compare the me of now and the me of then, I see the same eyes and smile. I kinda like both. Today I see a woman who is pretty darned sure of herself, who has spunk and sassiness, and the wisdom to avoid bikinis like the plague.

I also see my mother looking back at me. Mini-Mommy, as she was know to all my friends (she was barely 5'1" where I was 5'8"), had the greatest giggly-laugh. She loved nothing more than a funny joke, a good book, and terrific conversation. She taught me to listen, think, and then speak, a lesson I generally tend to ignore. I don't often think before I run my mouth, but that might be a topic for a different blog post.

The point here is, we are all of our experiences. We are our mothers. We are our sisters and cousins. Part of our young-lass self still lives inside the older and hopefully wiser current self. Both selves make us who we are today.

The naysayers, those who would diminish our value through put-downs and bullying, have no place in our circles of friends. We need to look in the mirror for a different image, the one where we are fearless inside. The classic Facebook meme to the left is what we should see when we look in the mirror. Brave. Strong. Willing to look the world in the eye and roar.

I like the young-lass me. I like the worldly me. I like the me my mother helped form. And I like the lion me.

Which one are you?

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Betsy Ashton is the author of Mad Max, Unintended Consequences, and Uncharted Territory, A Mad Max Mystery, now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Is a Strong Self-Esteem a Bad Thing?

I grew up in the generation when girls were taught self-praise stinks. While boys were taught to proclaim their worth. In the early 1960's, women were valued for how clean they kept their homes and men, for how much they earned. I had it drummed into me that Mondays were for laundry, Tuesdays for ironing, Wednesdays for baking, Thursdays for cleaning the downstairs and the upstairs were cleaned on Fridays. Cooking for Sunday meals was done on Saturday as was shopping. On Sunday, the Sabbath, we rested. Is it any wonder I hate routine?

Some would say life was gentler then. But was it?

Milllions of women were sure their self-worth was tied to taking care of others. Not a bad thing, really, but what about their dreams, their desires, their needs? Then the middle sixties hit. We had the sexual revolution, the power of the peace movement and the dreams of the civil rights movement. Slowly we moved into the feminine self-affirmation movement.

Women of a younger age are more prone to draw attention to their strong points. Yay them! When I hear my granddaughter say, "I can't wait for college next year. I shall shine bright like the stars," I want to stand up and applaude. "Go, Sugar Dumplin'!"

Yet a strong self-esteem is not merely for the young, it should be for us, too. We--you and me of various ages--deserve to feel good about ourselves. About our achievements, dreams attained, goals earned. And why not? Did we not work for those things? Allow your self-esteem to germinate, to grow, to bloom.

In my novella, Those Violet Eyes, Evie is hiding behind her dream of going to college to become a teacher. Win, the new man in her life, is encouraging her to make her dream come true. But, as so often with dreams denied, the excuses are often stronger than the dream. --

Win evidently saw her determined features. He shook his head a couple times and clicked his tongue for Blaze to approach her. When his horse stopped beside hers, he glanced across the pond, watching the birds—or waiting. Damn him.

Well, she could wait, too.

She slipped a foot out of her stirrup and slung it across her saddle. Leather creaked. A bullfrog plopped into the water. Silent minutes clanged by, growing louder with each tick of some unseen clock.

“Never took you for a coward, kitten. Not with all that attitude you’ve got.” Win slid his gaze to her, his hazel eyes growing hard. “Or was that all bluster to hide a scared little girl.”

Before she thought it through, Evie slid off Molly Mae. “You come down here and say that to my face, Win Fairchild, you overbearing, pushy jerk. I’ll slap your ears so hard, they’ll make a jam sandwich. Two floppy ears jammed together, you no-brained idiot. What gives you the right to push at me like this?”

Win slipped off Blaze, all ease and grace. In a flurry of movement, he grabbed her arms and hauled her to him. “What do you want out of life, Evie? Do you want to rot away on the Double-Bar working for Dooley? Or do you want to go after your dreams?”

“Some dreams are just that—dreams.” Didn’t he understand?

Win nodded. “True. I have a dream of going back to the Corps, but it won’t happen, not with my hearing loss and amputation. I have to accept it as an unrealistic dream. I also have a dream of helping kids who’ve lost limbs to accidents or diseases. It’s going to take some work and sacrifice on my part, but I aim to do it. Got a new dream, too.” His voice grew softer and he ran his knuckles down her cheek, his gaze intent on hers.

Don’t ask.

Available June 27th from The Wild Rose Press