Note to self...

I was doing my usual Sunday morning run along the Cairns Esplanade, nodding and hello-ing the usual people and I passed this woman. I always make a point of saying hello to her. She never says hello back. She looks straight ahead like she is totally focused on something. She’s painfully, to my mind unhealthily, stick thin. I’m guessing she’s anorexic. I don’t know. As she runs past, she worries me. A lot. When I see her, I think about how we do a lot of crazy, questionable and hurtful stuff to ourselves in the supposed name of beauty and wanting to fit in and how our mind is our best weapon but also our worst enemy. How do you control that? Fix it? Is self belief enough? Do you stop reading about who and what is perceived as supposedly beautiful so you don’t measure yourself by that?  Too fat? Too thin? Seriously, when you think about it, who made up the rules that have been driving women crazily obsessing for centuries?  When will we allow ourselves to make our own rules and stick by them?

As for the woman? I’ll still keep saying hello to her. Maybe one day she’ll say it back. Maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll want to chat to the crazy haired, sweaty woman who drives her mad every Sunday morning by saying hello. I’m always up for a chat about stuff.