The feeling is still surreal, and I'm still not sure when I look in the mirror that I am looking at my own face. Every fat girl has a layer of denial when she looks in the mirror in general. A way of angling the face in the proper light to hide the double chin while applying foundation; it's the same manipulation used in posed photographs. The tricks we use to make ourselves look "normal."
I remember dismay at seeing photographs that were unanticipated... shots caught unaware that were lacking any tricks, revealing my double chin and squinty eyes in all their fatty glory. I chalked these pictures up to "bad photography" and moved on.
But I did secretly know that they were more accurate, and, in my inner mental image of myself, these images lingered like little pesky secrets.
These are secrets that I miss. More and more, I'm having to double-take when catching my reflection in side car mirrors and reflective phone screens. My face, an obvious constant in my life, seems, at least to me, more than subtly different. My double chin seems missing in most shots, and I find that I am more comforted when I see it than when it's absent. It compounds my awkwardness with what I perceive to be a "new me," not quite familiar but not really a stranger.
Will it only get worse as I continue to lose?
