We sat on the grass in Herbert Park in the afternoon sun
It certainly wasn’t warm
This is spring in Ireland after all
But it was cozy and sitting opposite you is warming
As summer rolled around
As our new beginnings had come around again
As I watched you interact with the world
And noticed the way that I was doing the same
I had been thinking
And so I asked you
The question swirling around often and repetitively
I asked you whether you ever felt self-conscious
About your body, your looks, the way you presented to the world
Whether you ever felt repressed, reserved, subdued because of the body you are in
I couldn’t fathom that you would, but I didn’t want to presume
I might as well have asked you if I’d sprouted a new arm
That question might have made more sense to you
Or perhaps if I’d asked you the temperature in Timbuktu
You calmly, confidently and casually responded,
“No
I don’t think about it”
And then with the sweetest simplicity, something dawned on you
Your forehead creased
Your eyebrows raised
“Why?”
pause
confusion
“Do you?”
pause
bemusement
“But you’re beautiful”
You said it like it was the most natural thing in the world,
The most obvious of responses.
It was in that moment of your complete innocence that I realised
As an adult, it had never dawned on you to be self-conscious in a way that made you feel like you weren’t deserving
And it had never dawned on you that I might ever feel that way
The countless moments I had looked at my body with criticism that I had imposed through your eyes – it simply wasn’t there…
That my day included so many minutes making up hours of thinking I couldn’t do things until…
Until what?
Until I looked more like myself? Less like myself? Until what?
And the realisation that you had infinitely more time in your days because those minutes were being used for fruitful thoughts and furtive action
The fact that you couldn’t fathom that I would see myself as anything other than beautiful was shattering
and so sad
and so freeing
and so beautifully profound
And so
sitting on the grass in Herbert Park in the afternoon sun
I sat wide eyed, shaken and annoyed that I had wasted so much time in some sort of civil war
when there is simply no time to waste
believing myself to be anything other than free and beautifully profound