Sometimes I feel like everything I’ve ever been is a façade. I’ve always had a self-imposed habit of mirroring people. It stems from my yearning for social belonging.
I’m an observer. I notice every detail of everyone so closely that I’m able to pick and choose from my pocket of personalities to match people. I’m a performer. I go above and beyond just to feel seen. I contort who I am too much to the point that I almost lose a sense of my natural self and I’m stuck pleasing other people for the loud applause. I’m a trier. I cling to people’s attention however long it takes for them to care or realize that I’m even there.
I’m a mirrorball. I guess it may seem a bit strange to think someone could ever empathize so deeply with an inanimate object until your favorite artist lyricizes a three-minute and thirty-second masterful epitome of how you’ve felt your entire life. What might be just a shiny decorative sphere to the rest of the world is what Taylor Swift personified as the people in our lives that continuously shine for our entertainment no matter how draining it may be, a metaphor that speaks so perfectly to my own emotional fragility.
Mirrorballs. They’re wonderous, sparkly objects made out of thousands of fragmented pieces of glass. They’re hung atop dance floors to reflect a myriad of light beams all around the room. They’re used for adornment or to decorate social settings. They hang there to entertain people while they blissfully relish in each other’s presence and dance the night away to their favorite songs.
But the thing about mirrorballs is that they are inherently delicate, much like me. I’m easily over-feeling and beyond susceptible to everything that revolves around me. Being under the spotlight won’t make me feel any less vulnerable to my fears and emotions. I crack under pressure and every time I become increasingly more fraught to the touch. I could make every effort to keep my crowd lit up yet no matter how much entertainment I desperately provide it never seems to be enough to keep people looking. Should I come crashing down like a mirrorball and break into a million pieces, the party wouldn’t ever stop or wait for me to piece myself back together. Though a mirrorball may be broken, people will continue to dance because they never stop glistening.
“When you shine a light on them it’s this glittering fantastic thing but then a lot of the time when the spotlight isn’t on them they’re just still there up on a pedestal but nobody’s watching them.”
Taylor Swift, Folkore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions
Mirrorballs don’t produce their own light, they only reflect. I rarely ever feel at peace being my truest self. Instead, I try my hardest to understand other people and exhaust my limits to mirror them, even while I feel out of place in my very own skin. I act like I love socializing even when I feel socially anxious. I pretend to love the things I hate and resent the things I love because I fear being different. I conform to social norms because I just want to be liked. I rehearse conversations in my head over and over again in hopes to impress people. I force myself to laugh at the jokes I don’t even find funny because I simply want to be noticed. Parallel to a mirrorball, I am faceted. With every new version of myself, I try harder than the last to keep people looking at me, still boxing up the parts of myself I want to keep hidden. I reinvent myself time and time again in attempts to be admired, for better or for worse. The more I twist and bend myself, the less I am able to recognize the person I was before the damage. The more shattered a mirrorball is, the more reflective it can be.
Even when my show is over and the audience is gone, I never put my balancing act to an end. Though I may get tired of pretending to be someone I’m not, I never stop trying to find new facets of myself that people might find shiny enough to affix their attention on. I relentlessly adapt to satisfy the ever-changing ideas of who people think I should be. My efforts for attention are exorbitant. I carry on with a sense of hopeless optimism that love and attention will be returned even when it’s not. I stay on this tightrope long enough to allure the people who don’t even notice me. Everything is a tiring social endeavor to feel accepted and fit in where I don’t belong. I sit in silent desperation waiting to be praised, and though I may be overlooked or could break into a million pieces trying, I still never lose my spark. I still try my best to light up the room.
Sometimes the beauty lies in the attempt. You give everything until there’s nothing left in you, running the risk it may fail, and even when it does, you persevere and try again with no less effort than the time before. I think in some way, shape, or form, everyone has a mirrorball in them: those who love in excess and forgive with ease, the people-pleasing overachieving kind, the ones who grew up being told their dreams were too big to come true, the overthinking perfectionists that may take things too seriously sometimes, the happy friends that hold back their tears to not feel like an emotional burden, the ones who are always picked, but never first, the naïve, hopeless romantics, the people who never feel talented enough for anything more than average, and the self-doubters who always compare themselves with others.
From anyone who is still trying to find the best version of themselves to the people that never feel whole, but also not entirely broken—we’re all mirrorballs. We’re all born with an innate desire to be accepted, to feel heard and seen, to be loved and wanted, to be praised and appreciated, and to fit in. It’s part of the human experience. We entertain and at times we fall, yet no matter how much we break, we never stop shining.