I Understand Why You Swim in a T-Shirt. Aren’t We All Insecure?

When Savara said “Huenda swimmo na tsho” I felt it. And when he added “And you never leave the house with no makeup on” I screamed but let’s not talk about it.

Actually, let’s talk about it. I think insecurities are wild because they don’t even have to make sense. You could have a perfectly nice face with dimples, a decent personality, a perfect accent without mixing up your Ls and Rs, and still lie awake at night convinced that your hair refusing to make a fluffy bun is the reason nobody will ever truly love you.

Let me use myself as an example, just to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. I have palmar hyperhidrosis. I’ve been at war with my palms since the invention of handshakes. Apart from making my keyboard wet when I’m typing, or worse, my notebooks, my hands have never hurt anyone. And still, every time someone reaches for my hand, there’s a split second where my brain goes, “Are we doing this?”

This is probably also why I’ve perfected the pre-handshake pant-wipe. The little drag-and-swipe before any greeting. When I can, I just hug you and call it a day. Except people around here still extend their hands after you’ve just hugged them. I wrote about that, by the way.

What I’ve come to believe: there will always be someone who loves it anyway. Someone who reaches for your hand, wet or not, and just... holds it. Doesn’t flinch, doesn’t comment, doesn’t reach for a napkin mid-handhold. That’s the whole thing about love. It finds the parts of you that you don’t love and loves them for you. Those love handles you’re trying so hard to get rid of? Someone, somewhere, is going to look at them and wonder how they got so lucky.

And then there are your friends, those crazy people, who take a completely different approach and just treat your hands like their personal moisturizer. They’re like, “Oh, you’re sweaty? Perfect. Wipe your hand on mine. I’m ashy.” And somehow, that becomes its own little language of love.

I’ve heard people say they’re insecure about their laugh, which sounds like a goose being startled, their teeth, their forehead, the way they walk like they’re being chased by an inconvenience, their boobs that are not the same height, their left-side profile, or their hairline. And every time I hear one of these, my honest reaction is: does it really matter?

We are all, every single one of us, insecure about something. Some of those things are completely invisible to everyone but ourselves; others are right there in plain sight, only we notice them far more than anyone else does. Which makes the whole exercise of laughing at someone else’s insecurities a little absurd. You’ve got your own list. I’ve got mine. It’s currently ten items long and lives in my hands.

So I’m learning to love myself, sweaty palms and all, because I got tired of being at war with a part of my own body for no good reason. And I’m learning to love other people the same way by seeing them beyond things they’re insecure about.

So, what’s that little thing about yourself you’ve been at war with?