This was originally posted on my old blog on 1 October 2014.

I am doing a thing: I am looking at those around me, and I am making an effort to not judge. That guy with the clothes: you know, the one that makes you roll your eyes? I am putting brakes on that eye-roll. That girl with the stuff, you know what I’m talking about, the one that makes you smirk. I am giving that smirk a glare and making it scuttle back into its cave.

I am doing this thing because I have learned that someone, somewhere, is going to do the same about me. They are going to look at my face, and if they want, they will have grounds for nudging a friend with an elbow and waggle an eyebrow in my direction. They are going to spot my shoes, my shirt, my hair, my socks, and I guarantee you “they” will have among their ranks members who will find reason for disapproval. No matter what you wear, how you cut your hair, what makeup you do or don’t wear, you look awful to someone somewhere.

And I am they, to someone else, and I decide to rather realise everytime I feel that impulse to disapprove that among “them” there are also those who think what I disapprove of is great, is desirable, is to be emulated. In that way, I hope to become more and more the “they” who respects everyone’s right to tell the story of who they are through what they look like. I want to become part of the “them” that is a safe space where that story is not ripped to shreds with looks, and giggles, and nasty little bladed comments.