You look in the mirror and see yourself every single day.

You would think this constant viewing would make you feel sure of what you are going to see. You would think with this constant viewing that you wouldn’t recognise subtle changed about yourself, that day by day you would look the same.

Lately when I look in the mirror I see a girl who is starting to look older. A girl who is starting to look her age, or even older. A girl who perhaps is starting to look less and less like a girl and more like a woman.

And I don’t feel like this young woman.

I don’t feel like the age I think I’m starting to look like.

It seems to have come out of nowhere, for years always being told I look younger than my age and being labelled ‘cute’, what is it that I will be now?

My family members don’t see what I see, they say I look the same. That I look my age.

Which got me thinking that perhaps a reflection of what you see isn’t just an outwards reflection, but what’s on the inside reflects outwards too. Making how you feel on the inside determine how you view yourself to look on the outside.

And on the inside in many ways I feel mature for my age. I feel I am no longer as naïve and innocently blind to the ways of the world and to people like I was even just a year ago. I feel I know more about the realities of every day to day life and worries and stresses many people hold. And I can’t say I like this.

I wish I could undo parts of the past year, make me my old naïve, innocent, young looking self.

As they say, ignorance is bliss, and now I am no longer ignorant I cannot bask in this bliss. But I think it’s important to realise that I can’t go back, and I cannot undo.

However what people can do is try not let things bring them down. Try not to let the world seem like a big scary place. Try not let your stresses and worries control you and how you view life. To try and remain positive and optimistic about what is maybe to come.

Perhaps then I will look in the mirror and view me as how young and care-free I actually am and should be. Perhaps then I will feel like I’m looking at myself again.

As Roald Dahl puts it best- “If you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”