Who Is Finer? Me Or Her?

Have you ever had a time where all you saw was you? A time where you were so immersed in your own world that you literally saw no one? Well, I have. I guess then I was in my early teens. All I saw was me. As a matter of fact, I never knew anyone whose feet were more beautiful, or perhaps whose arms were slenderer: not because I was full of praise and admiration for myself, but because I never saw myself in the first place, not to talk of seeing another. All I knew was that I had a body and my name is called Eniola. So any time the name is called, I went with my body to take ownership of it. I was Eniola Olaosebikan and that was all that mattered- not my feet, my legs nor my hips.  I left for school every day in my body with perhaps the maximum care I could give it, but then, without a care of how it differed from someone else’. It was a point where I never really saw me, not to talk of seeing someone else.

But then, that time came; the time my eyes suddenly opened as though I ate the apple Eve ate. I began to see whose arms were slimmer, whose skin was more golden and perhaps whose feet were cuter. I not only began to take note of myself, but also of others.  But then, the more I saw, and perhaps searched, the more all I saw were differences, never similarities. Then suddenly, I began to feel all alone in the world, because no one for some reasons was like me. The more I compared, the more I saw things I thought I didn’t like about myself and in contrast saw things I loved more in others. I began to lose the primal love I had for myself though I never knew it existed. Almost everybody that had what I seemed not to have either suddenly became prettier or perhaps I suddenly became prettier than them. The comparison I believe made me form caucuses with some in my league and others either below or seemingly above.  Aside from the love now seemingly lost, I also began to lose the self-respect I had for myself I never knew existed as well. Slowly, like a ceiling fan disconnected from its source of electricity, I began to take my eyes off myself till finally I fixed it on someone else, or should I say other people’s? People whose ground it appeared I would love to worship. 

But then, one thing I’m eternally grateful for was that it never took me so long before I began to put my gaze back on myself. This time around however, in a conscious way. How did it happen? I realized two major things- 

1.       The fact that I am a Masterpiece and that there is no one else like me.

2.       That my body is just a container, a container to be thrown away after the liquid- my assignment- is done.

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