When I met her, I assumed we stood about the same height. In my mind, I never towered over her. Yet over years, I’ve come to see the truth of a three foot difference, exaggerated even more when I wear heels.
Self-concept is a peculiar thing.
In her mid-60’s my grandmother once told me that she felt like a young girl in her mind. At the time, I couldn’t quite grasp what she meant. I was in my 20’s with a self-concept that felt congruent. Now, in my 50’s, I understand more clearly what my grandmother described.
Once in a while, I bump into the reality that my self-concept doesn’t quite match reality.
I recently tried on clothes in a department store, which I rarely do. I needed an outfit for an on-camera interview. Standing in the dressing room, facing a full-length mirror, I noticed something unsettling. The size of my body in the reflection didn’t match my mental image of myself.
The Bible uses a similar comparison in James, “…they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.”
The hidden gap
When I move through the world, I carry a self-concept of who I am, how I look, what I represent, and why I show up the way I do. For much of my life, I believed that I could cast this vision of myself onto others, shaping how they saw me. I’ve come to think of this as image management.
But the longer I live, the more I realize that the version of myself I carry doesn’t match what others. Maybe it never did. That awareness has come slowly and has been somewhat unwelcome. My mother taught me, as many of us were, to present myself well in public. I passed that lesson on to my children. Yet no matter how hard I try, I cannot control how others perceive or make it match my own self-perception.
Like an artist creating a masterpiece, I choose who I want to be and how I show up. But once the work is placed in a gallery, it no longer belongs solely to the artist. It becomes subject to the interpretation of the viewer.
When my grandmother said she still felt like a young girl, I could only see the woman in front of me. I couldn’t access the version of herself she carried within. Now I understand—others can’t see mine either. The chasm between how I view myself and how others see me may grow with each passing year.
But so does something else: freedom. Freedom to see the beauty within and to appreciate the privilege of an exclusive viewing.