What do you see when you look into your own eyes?  Do you take the time to stare into a mirror at your own eyes, your own face?  If the eyes are the mirror of the soul, what do your eyes say about you?

My life is busy without a doubt.  I rush off in the morning to work.  Rush through my day helping faculty, students, staff, student workers, and the public.  I'm at the center of a maelstrom of activity.  I come home to cram in an hour or so of quality time with my husband.  After he goes to bed, I might manage to take a breath and think about ME or the state of my soul.  

The other night, I was getting ready for bed.  I looked up in the mirror as I washed my hands and really looked at my face and into my eyes.  I saw what I always saw - freckles, hazel eyes, red/blonde eyebrows, red hair.  There was nothing new to see.  But me being me - I took a moment and looked beyond the physical and wondered how my soul was doing.  Yes, I know this sounds odd but the words banged around in my head and it's stuck with me.

Who am I?  Am I the person I thought I would be?  Am I where I want to be?  Thanksgiving is around the corner and I know everyone is on the "we should be thankful" kick.  I'm not.  Or maybe I am but in a different way than most people.  I don't know.  

That moment - a couple of seconds really - had me thinking about what I do right and wrong in my life, how I can be better, what I need to work on.  The dark of the year closes in around us, takes our focus from the brightness of summer to a quieter time where we are meant to look within ourselves.  

A few weeks back, I looked up the number of writing products I have published since I started publishing.  I was astonished at the number.  I'd been feeling down about my writing - unproductive and critical.  I get in these funks about my creative work - it may be the creative mind or it may just be me.  I wasn't feeling successful.  Looking up the number of products and the array of products, I realized I am successful and I need to stop beating myself up about it.  

This latest revelation - the moment in the mirror - made me think about me as a person, me as a wife, me as a mother.  There are areas in my life I struggle with, I don't feel like I'm doing my best.  The moment in the mirror magnified some of this to me.  

It's a time of year when we look within, we look at our accomplishments and our failures.  We have to decide what to take away from these revelations, what to be proud of, what to change, and what to discard.  This is the beginning of that time.  It's the start of my evaluation of me.  The sun hardly shows his face, the world (at least in the northern hemisphere and in the northern regions) is darker, colder, forcing us inside - both inside our homes for protection against the weather and inside ourselves.  I'm going to take the time this winter to look at me and answer those questions.  It isn't always an easy journey but it is always enlightening.