I am five years old.
I’m cutting out shapes in class. My first-grade teacher walks by as I cut out the circle and then the triangle. She doesn’t know what I am imagining as I do it—what I assume everyone must think.
I’m freeing the shapes. Letting them be who they really are, separating them from the paper that is hiding who they are.
I don’t have a strong sense that I need this, yet, but I imagine I’m helping people to do the same thing. Helping them to lose weight, so they can be the real them. So they aren’t covered up.
I imagine how happy people would be to be free, like the shapes. I’m happy that I can help them.
I am five years old.
I am a teenager now, and I know that now I need that help to be free. I’m doing my best.
My skeleton doesn’t change- that must be me. All the rest, all the fat, even the muscle—those things can change. That’s not an intrinsic part of who I am. I need to get rid of that so people can see the real me, so I’m clearly defined.
Other people will know who I am. I will know who I am. I won’t be hidden by all this. I’ll get to be that triangle, and everyone will see that and understand me.
But I don’t believe that anymore. Who I am has nothing to do with what my body looks like. I’m making progress toward really internalizing that. It takes time, but I’m learning.
I am not a triangle that needs to be cut out from a page. I don’t need to be freed from everything around me. I’m already me.
Indeed! And you help others discover who they are and how to travel their own path.