The Wheel in the Mirror
The Wheel in the Mirror
58 years of learning, understanding, and applying lessons.
Some were hard to understand when I was young, but easy enough to do once I did. Others became clearer with time—and harder to live.
They weren’t given all at once. They came as sayings. As moments. As things I heard long before I knew what to do with them.
Hold the flashlight right. It’s all on the wheel. It all comes back around. You make your own breaks. Sorry doesn’t cut it. I’ve forgotten more than you know.
For a long time, they lived separately. Each one made sense on its own. Each one could be learned, misunderstood, ignored, or revisited in isolation.
But there came a point where none of them could stand alone anymore.
It wasn’t that they changed meaning. It was that they were all required at once.
That moment came with the hardest lesson of all. The one that was easy to understand the first time I heard it—and the hardest to actually do.
Look yourself in the mirror.
Talking to yourself in your head isn’t the same. Writing things down isn’t the same. Looking yourself in the eyes—without looking away—that’s different.
In the mirror, the wheel stops being an idea and starts being something you can feel. You see what’s coming back around. You recognize the breaks you didn’t make—and the ones you did.
Sorry doesn’t cut it there. There’s no one else to convince. No story to soften.
The light shows up differently too. Not the one you were trying to aim for someone else—but the one you’re responsible for carrying yourself.
Even the things you thought you forgot have a way of returning. Not because they were lost, but because you weren’t ready to face them yet.
That’s when I realized something I hadn’t before.
The mirror is where all the lessons show up together. Where none of them get to hide behind the others. Where effort, responsibility, honesty, and memory all have to stand in the same place.
Mirror work is never done. You don’t finish it. You come back to it.
Again. And again.
It waits while the noise outside gets loud. While life stays busy. While you look for answers in your outward appearance instead of within.
So Dad, you were right.
Everything really is on the wheel.
Maybe the mirror is the wheel.
Or maybe it’s the only place you’re given a chance to take hold of it.
Some lessons don’t end in understanding.
They end in practice.
I’m only now putting it all into words that finally make sense.
I hope you still take the time to stand in front of your mirror too.
Because today, that lesson taught me again.
Thank you for all of them.
Your Son,
— The Sovenquill