"There is always a gap between how we feel inside 

ourselves and how the world sees us. Sometimes this gap

 is comfortingly narrow and seems bridgeable; at other

 times it yawns horribly, so that the self we experience and 

the one that other people encounter appear almost unconnected.

I think that this bewildering and often frightening 

mismatch between the way we see and know ourselves and

the way the world sees us happens more often and more powerfully

as we get older - because, of course, inside our minds and our hearts

and our heads, we are still young, still just getting going on life's 

journey, still making up our minds who we want to be."
...., 

But the mirror ignores the selves I carry with me and can only, 
mercilessly, show me my 56-year-old self, unmistakably 
bashed about by life and all its ambushes.

By Nicci Gerrard for the Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2813247/The-day-saw-old-crone-mirror-realised-NICCI-GERRARD-awful-chasm-young-feel-world-sees-us.html