I'm taking off my make-up in the most usual nightly way. I lean in closer to remove a speck of mascara on my lower eyelashes when I stop and look at my reflection. Then I see it.
Myself.
I watch my eyes looking back at me, taking in every aspect of my present reality. Moving as I subconsciously tell them to. Back and forth. Slowly. Quick. Always guiding with unmatched precision. They never mess up. There's never a system glitch with these guys.
I stop and see myself as if it were the first time. A thing of beauty. Not because I fit the mold for a culture's standard of aesthetic appeal, but because I can't help but stop and look at the complexity of the creature I find myself to be.
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I'm in fourth grade and my mom is having a baby. She shows us pictures of what my little brother looks like inside her. She thinks the whole thing is ah-mazing. My lack of zeal in having another brother is even more subsided when I see that an extraterrestrial is living inside my mother's abdomen. Protruding forehead. Tiny limbs. Beady eyes.
I'm studying for a test a few weeks ago when I stop to look at a photo titled, "Period of the Embryo: seventh week." A slightly crystalline skin surrounds the two small black spheres that will later look identical to my own. The lucid beauty of life growing in front of me makes me hold my breath. How does it happen?
I see what my mom tried to show me all those years ago.
There is unmatched beauty in the living. When I forget to bask in the beauty of life, I forget who I am. When I forget to feel awe that I can intake everything around me through two spheres that once resembled black eyed peas, I can't glorify the One who made them.
We have become accustomed to miracles. We are so accustomed to seeing ice freeze and seeds grow and eyes blink and babies laugh. We forget it's all miracle. It really is great to be alive, when you think about it.
.... What a wonder it all is.
