The Mirror, as I See It

So many things change in our lives that perhaps even an entire book would not be enough to collect them all.

After a long period of reflection, I decided not to limit myself to a single story.

Instead, I want to share several moments that shaped me as a woman.

There are the basic changes, for example when your breasts seem to grow almost overnight.

It may sound funny or too ordinary, but a woman can feel insecure not only when her breasts seem too small.

Having larger-than-average breasts can also create difficulties.

Several men I know claim there is no such thing as breasts that are too large.

Women who actually have to carry them might disagree.

Your back hurts.

And the moment you feel a sudden sharp pain, your mind immediately begins imagining the worst.

Learning how to live comfortably with a larger body is genuinely a process.

Mirror — Yes:

“too large” absolutely exists.

Some people are lucky.

They instinctively know how to handle the fact that from one day to the next two suddenly prominent features attract everyone’s attention.

I was not one of them.

But in secondary school, one of my friends — slightly fuller-figured than I was — became a wonderful example through her humour and easy-going attitude.

With her, I learned how to deal with blank stares and rude comments.

I imagine many women know the feeling.

Let’s call my friend Blondie — not in the stereotypical sense.

Thanks to her, I learned to treat every breast-fetish reaction as something almost ordinary.

I will never forget one moment when a man became completely absorbed in our cleavage while talking to us.

When he finally reached the end of his long sentence and his eyes still had not moved, Blondie looked at me, shrugged, glanced down at her chest and said simply:

“Do you two understand?”

I smiled.

Yes.

Apparently you can handle it like that too.

Something shifted inside me.

From then on, nobody managed to embarrass me.

My emotional development also included the kind of relationship that runs a blade straight through the heart.

After ten years, I discovered that the man living beside me — by then my husband — no longer wanted me.

There is nothing wrong with that in itself.

I exhausted every possible repair option, exactly as one is supposed to:

I experienced my efforts colliding with complete indifference.

I sat in the car at Christmas with swollen eyes and my dog beside me.

And, in the most familiar kind of American-film plot twist, I ended up at my mother’s home with a broken heart.

I remain endlessly grateful to my friends and soul companion for the support they gave me.

For their words.

Their attitude.

The nights we spent talking everything through.

The Facebook reset accompanied by a photo shoot that repaired my ego.

The “you are not staying alone even when you are ill — you are coming with us and waving your arms on a film set” approach.

And I could continue.

For two years, I woke every day to a face in the mirror that seemed to change several times a day.

Every possible version of me appeared.

The first major turning point came from a winter shadow on a street in Salzburg.

After New Year’s Eve I was walking with my friend Bí.

The sun was shining.

And in my shadow I suddenly saw an old childhood dream:

A slim, stylish woman in a cool coat walking a dog across cobblestones.

I looked up.

In a shop window, I saw myself.

“Damn.

That’s me.”

And then it hit me.

“You know what?

To hell with it.

I did everything I could.

Now I’m free.”

Of course I had no idea yet that being single after ten years is a complete nightmare.

You no longer remember how to relax.

What the basic dating rules are.

How the little games work.

And for some inexplicable reason, the words “loser” or “run away” somehow seem to appear on your forehead.

You cannot see them.

Everybody else apparently can.

Fortunately, my friends and family showed infinite patience during this phase.

And nobody tried to introduce me to a single supposedly “perfect catch”.

For that, I can never be grateful enough.

We talked a lot.

We laughed even more.

And I found myself in countless situations where the world around me confirmed that I was neither a monster nor an alien.

Although clearly I still had things to learn.

My journey on that emotional roller coaster finally ended when one kind sentence made me drive several hundred kilometres — only to wake up the next morning in a basement in a completely surreal situation.

Do not imagine anything dramatic from a crime series.

Nothing serious happened.

It was simply strange.

I lay there on the bed, looked around, then stared at the concrete ceiling.

I did not even need a mirror to look inside myself.

“What on earth am I doing here?

And how did I get this far?”

Still, everything has its purpose.

As I packed my clothes, I thought through all the desperate experiments of the previous months.

I had been the muse of a young heroic lover.

I climbed mountains in brand-new boots.

I tried to make friends with rafting for a wild surfer who later ended up sleeping with one of my friends.

I sat on a Ferris wheel with a much younger man.

I went on several blind dates.

And now this.

We were not really looking for each other.

Still, I will remain grateful to that man for two reasons.

First, he made me realise that this could not continue.

Second, while I was with him, I received one of the most devastating pieces of news of my professional life, and he did everything he could to help me survive it.

I suppose that makes us even.

Life soon proved something else:

When I stopped trying so hard, love found me.

With Him, I had a wonderful, healthy little boy.

And I married exactly the way I had always dreamed of marrying.

On our wedding day, when I looked in the mirror, I saw myself again.

That was a miracle in itself.

The last time those same eyes had looked back at me had been sometime during university.

Finally, I want to share my most recent change.

I have been working in my profession for thirteen years.

And the time has come to let it go.

For several years, everybody around me has listened to me say this.

They nod enthusiastically.

But until now, I always allowed myself to be pulled back.

This time, the circumstances themselves are closing the doors behind me.

When the largest door slammed shut, I sat there stunned and started calling people.

The honest words of my friend Andi and the cheering reaction of my surroundings slowly reached me too.

So in the end I had only a manageable amount of panic to deal with.

That evening, I sat down on the floor to play cars with my little boy.

He laughed wildly.

---

Then he had an enormous play session with my husband.

Do I really need more than that?

What helps me when the giant waves of change arrive?

Family.

Friends.

Time.

Myself.

And one unforgettable sentence from an old teacher:

“Ágikám, don’t shit yourself — grab onto the sail.”

Professional portrait photography works best when the real person remains recognisable behind the image.