Accepting Others: A Guest Post By Laura Mitcham
8:23:00 AM
You're walking down the street and a person comes over, they are wearing a yellow top, it shows half their very chubby stomach, for some reason today they decided not to wear pants and their hands are shockingly sticky. They barely talk while you walk and when they do, it's quiet and mumbled as though they are not talking to you but to themselves. Now you're probably thinking that this person might have some issues, maybe a mental disability or some sort of disorder? Now how do you think you would react? This person running up to you, who you don't know, whom you think is possibly insane? Would you run? Hide? Fake a sick to get away? Did it even cross your mind that you could return the favour and greet them back? Maybe say hello? Ask their name? Probably not.
So now let's do this again, except with a different perspective. Think how you would react, maybe differently.
You woke up late, really late, so you had to quickly put all your clothes on, looked in the basket but your mum hadn't got paid enough yet from her job which she works 14 hours a day to keep you alive and to buy you some pants that weren't shoddy when your father left you. The only top you had was a very old one that showed your stomach, you are very insecure about your stomach because you can see the tumour. As you run to catch the bus, you get to the bus stop, but the bus doesn't stop, you chase after it but you fall and get oil on your hands. Slowly and painfully you walk to school, hands sticky, clothes ratty, pants nonexistent. You see a person who looks kind, you run over and wait for them to react. As you walk you try to talk but can't build up the confidence because you have social anxiety.
So you just read one of the deepest things I’ve written before. It started off as a part of a speech and very quickly changed into something entirely different than expected. It really made me think, and I came up with a few questions. What is acceptance? How do people show it? Do people still show it? People matter, and if you’ve read Horton Hears A Who by Dr Seuss you’ll know the famous quote, "A person’s a person no matter how small." This saying applies to everything else too. Race does not define you, nor do your size or looks. You are you, embrace it.
Love always,
Laura
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