Just How It's Changed

It's rather funny to think about change. It's this certain quality that we can't define, can't explain, love and hate. We're terrified of it, yet miserable without it. In a way, it establishes who we are and how we live our lives. There's no avoiding it and no hiding from it, not that after a while we'd want to. But perhaps what is interesting to consider is how our interests have changed, our thoughts, and even our comforts.

This post is probably going to contain way too much information for anybody to want to know, but I don't care. If you don't like it, don't read it, the warning has been issued, so at this point, scarring mental images are no longer my fault nor my responsibility.

It's rather funny though, how three years ago, clothing was like a shield. I felt awkward, strange, uncomfortable, maybe even a bit violated when I showed more skin than usual. The sheer idea of someone seeing me down to undergarments was disturbing, almost like those childhood nightmares of forgetting your pants. Changing in high school locker rooms was unpleasant, and I wasn't the only one. We all cowered in our own corners, tried to cover ourselves as best we could between pulling one item of clothing off and putting another on.

But in three years, something has clearly changed. Because now, it's the other way around: clothing is like a burden, and bare skin bears a certain comfort to it. Sure, I'm not about to start prancing around naked, nor do I overtly dislike clothes. All the same, though, the shift has been monumental.

It couldn't have come in a giant leap, because I would have noticed that. Instead, the change must have been gradual. Suddenly, there was a new comfort in being undressed before people. There was no more awkwardness, no staring or trying desperately to look away. Being naked began to bear a certain intimacy, a certain familiarity with people, even on a merely friendly scale, from a non-sexual, non-romantic standpoint.

Maybe that's just one of those things that happens as you mature, you learn to become more accepting of yourself and your body, not just those around you. The physical awkwardness becomes less of a barrier to communication, expression, or anything really. Maybe it's because you learn to take a step beyond words, to express yourself with your body again, as in childhood--with smiles, hugs, appreciative of the warmth afforded by a human being.

And in that way, any bodily contact becomes once again comforting, not threatening. Once you get past the awkwardness of adolescence, where every bit of accidental contact is frightening and full of implications, you reach the stage where physical intimacy becomes no less important than emotional intimacy, where you learn that clinging to another human being can make everything better so much faster than anything else.

I guess that's the metaphorical threshold I crossed at some point in the past three years. It doesn't mean that I like my body, merely that I have learned to live with it and accept it. And honestly, I am entirely uncertain of why I thought of this during my lunch break...but I did, so I wrote about it. Whether it makes sense or not, though...that's an entirely different question.