Like most humans, I still have to eat, sleep, drink, and yes, go to the ladies’ room. A quite obvious fact of life. However, I’m usually hiding in the pink scented hall of doom with several other women. As I’m washing my hands, I try to be as cordial as possible. Over time, I’ve noticed that I’m in the middle of a group of women that are all indulging in these little one time conversations with each other during the handwashing ritual.

The topic can be virtually anything under the sun, but as I begin wandering around in public more, the topic seems to shift to size. We women are masterminds at checking for every microscopic piece of invisible fat on parts of our bodies that nobody’s even looking at!

“I’m so fat. My legs are huge!” chirps one lady. The other lady responds with, “Well, at least you don’t have these love handles or these huge feet.”

I am blissfully unaware of either of them, until both turn on me in classic “me and my sister against the enemy” fashion. “Well, don’t you dislike something?”

I found it very hard to respond. I mean, I don’t get on that level that often anymore, because my life has turned so digital. Where I play online, most care more about your grammar skills than how well you can twirl that mascara wand, and they could honestly not give two shades of lipstick if you can’t seem to fit into that pair of skinny jeans from the 10th grade.

The thing is…when I look into the mirror, I see a person. I believe that we are only bound by the limits we set — how else could I have created such a responsive blog about women’s plus size fashion if there was some inherent “block” put on that?

I love fashion. I love makeup. I love hair. That’s why it saddens me when I see the very things that I delight in become such a negative drain on women. Instead of fighting things that I don’t like about myself, I turn them into positives.

Going through high school I was teased because my hips were so big — I’d knock things off countertops and bump into shelves all the time. It used to really embarrass me because everytime it happened, somebody would have something snotty to say. I never understood that at all, but the most interesting thing is that now that I’m out of that environment, I get a lot of women that go “I want those kind of hips!” Not too long back they were the butt (no pun intended) of far too many jokes, and now I get praise for them. Ah, if we could all be so fickle.

The mirror isn’t the enemy. It’s not even the friend. It’s a tool, much like a hammer or a screwdriver or even some of those fancy dremel widgets, I like those too. Learning to accept that what you’re seeing in the mirror isn’t what gets you the job, the house, the friends of the car that goes vroom is the tricky part, but it can be learned.

How do I overcome the “mirror game”? I tell myself that I’m the greatest. Cocky? Probably, but it starts and ends the day with a smile on my face all the same.

How do you “beat the mirror”? Is it something that took time, or did you find the road to enlightenment early on?