I can draw circles around you.

Says the man on the trail in the absolute middle of nowhere with a full parking lot and voices echoing from upwind. We are so far out into what feels like the wilderness, with the kind of scenery that exists in photographs, but with ample signage and flushing toilets. Anyone who has been to a national park knows what I'm talking about.

I can draw circles around you. Are they the kind that constrict or highlight? Are we drawing a halo? Is it one you want? Is it one you deserve? Am I doing it for me? Or because I am actually thrilled for whatever it is you have done? Or just for who you are?

Or am I making your world more circumspect? Am I defining you in a way that will make things easier for me to understand? Am I putting you, or how we relate to each other, in a box? Seems like a fast way to kill a relationship. No matter the color of ribbon you tie it up with.

What would the circles cover? Would they be the parts of you I don't like? Those goofy knees and the propensity for insecurity? Or would they be the parts of me that I don’t like? So I notice them more on you? So you are superior by my judgment of my own self? but where those same parts of you I very much like?

Where, precisely, would that insecure part be located? If I were able to pinpoint it. Would it include bits outside the body? Do the circles extend to the non corporeal bits?

I would like to think that if It were me, I would draw that circle to say - look at the remarkableness contained in this person. This exquisite, dimpled, functional, weak-on-the-left-side body. Look at these arms and legs moving in synchrony while that mind works on tonight’s dinner and the right words to say to a crying child. Look at the number of things this person can and will do both in the next hour and in the arc of the rest of their being.

I can draw circles around you and you will be deserving of every one. It is easier to draw those circles around others than ourselves. So maybe next time you see someone deserving of a circle then draw one around them and whatever part of you resembles them.

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