Saturday morning I went running with a friend. Actually, this friend taught me how to run last year, training with me each Saturday morning ‘til we ran together in my first 5K in the spring.
As we were headed back to the house, he looked over at me and noticed that my head was beginning to smolder. I told him to not worry as it tended to do that when I overheated. When we made it home, we chatted for a few minutes on the driveway before I asked to move to the back patio. At this point, my face was blood red. With eyeballs bulging, I knew sooner rather than later that my hair would catch fire unless I took preemptive action.
So I peeled my shirt off, removed my shoes, and proceeded to drench my skull with cool water right out of the garden hose. I sat down next to my friend in an adjacent rocking chair in the shade of the back porch before getting up again to rinse and repeat. Eventually, I sat back down and we continued our conversation never once missing a beat.
It’s impossible to not make a situation somewhat uncomfortable when unexpected partial nudity is involved. I would have never chosen to do this had I not been extremely physically uncomfortable. Plus, I trusted that my old friend would survive the onslaught of my pale torso at least for a few minutes. And he did.
The milestone here is the complete lack of self-loathing or embarrassment I experienced related to my body either during the event or afterwards. I proudly owned it as my God given flesh.
If only someone could have given my 15 year old self a glimpse into his future, to this very day when things would finally change for the better. It’s been a long 24 years.
