Goodbye to Vanity

When I was thirteen years old, my parents bought me an antique vanity, circa 1920’s.  They became popular in that decade, mainly because many characters in movies had them, and everyone wanted to sit in front of a vanity doing their makeup and hair, like the film stars they admired.  It held a giant mirror in the middle, with an ornately carved walnut-stained wooden frame around it.  The center area was like a low desk, and on each side rose a small attached drawer, and the top of each formed a shelf.  Below those were larger drawers, which framed my legs as I sat on the low stool my dad made for me.  It perched on small, creaky metal wheels.  The mirror was in good shape, with just a few age spots around the border.  They placed it in my room with other antiques:  my grandmother’s cedar chest, a side-by-side desk.  

At the time I was a girl, almost a young woman, and that mirror was where I first looked, and really saw me.  It was where I first wondered who that was, looking back.  It was where I looked back, and wondered where I would go.  We moved, and then I moved. Homes changed, and then I changed.  That vanity always came with me.  My vanity was a constant.  Over the years the reflection evolved, and the vanity patiently waited for the next version of me.  

It was where I sat to get ready for the prom, my mother telling me to be sure to put mascara lightly on my bottom lashes, to help me look ‘starry eyed.’ It was where I smiled at her reflection walking by, as I blinked on the mascara brush. In later years, it was where I sat low, tears flowing, mascara running down my face.

It was where I learned what my hair was and was not capable of.  It is both capable and not capable of a great deal.  It was where I learned that I didn’t look exactly like society told me I should, and it was where I became okay with that.  Not merely okay, I learned to relish my differentness, for I never wanted to be just another.  It was where I learned to really dance, and to celebrate for no reason at all.  

It was where I reaped what I had sewn.  Where I had to look myself in the eye and tell the truth.  It was where I grew up.

For a long time, my vanity was the only household item I never considered letting go.  I think subconsciously I must have thought that somehow, it carried the girl I once was along with it.  The memory of her, anyway. That girl who held a hairbrush in her hand as a microphone, or maybe a curling iron, the fan blowing her hair while she sings.  And she danced.  She danced every day.

Through ups and downs, my vanity stood stock still.  When I fell down, I’d get up the next morning and there it would be, helping me get ready for another day.  

Thirty years later, it had become just a place in a corner.  I didn’t use it anymore, but I didn’t want to let it go.  My vanity was in the way, taking up space.  It was worse for wear - it had been knocked around - screws missing, the veneer chipped, one of the wheels long gone.  

That girl got a bit knocked around too.  But don’t worry, she is still standing as well.  She doesn’t look in the mirror nearly as much as she once did.  Mirror gazing is, as it should be, for the young.  And so, she just doesn’t sit there anymore.  

And so one day I decided to let it go.  I resolved, if the mirror goes, it goes. 

If the vanity goes, it goes.

The memories?  Well, those will stay.  Not long before having to make this decision, I realized that things don’t actually hold memories.  I mean, of course they don’t.  But, I, and I’m sure many like me, hold onto things from our past or things that belonged to someone we loved and lost as a way to keep something close. When someone is long gone, even if that someone is the person we once were, the things they owned don’t necessarily give comfort.  Not really.  We want them to.  We want to have something to hold onto.  But, the memories live within us, and that is where comfort must live as well, we just have to know where to look and then dive in to go get it.

I didn’t know any of this until it was time to say goodbye.  I needed the space in a room, and I suppose I needed space from what it represented.  My vanity just didn’t fit in my home, or in my life anymore.  Holding it no longer made sense.  

Weirdly, or not, I find that the release of physical things frees me to dive deeper within to find memories.  Like I’m getting rid of a crutch, and have to rely more on what’s inside, rather than external material objects to cue me.  Those memories, of experience, of love, of location, become more expansive and vivid.  I am allowed to get to my true story, by purposefully spending time with them.  

So I decided to take it to a charity and let my vanity go.  Maybe another girl will sit there one day, to wonder and to dream, to make memories without knowing it, to smile at her mother and blink on a mascara brush, to dance and sing, to feel low, to celebrate for no reason at all, and to grow up.  Then some day, she too will have to let it all go.

Perhaps by letting go of her vanity, she can be free to possess those memories herself, to fully own her story, to get out of her own way and let it bloom.

Don’t hold onto your vanity too long.