Leonor Barrosa

Beach season is coming up again, and with it, the knot in my stomach. Every year, as the days get longer and the first real warmth hits Lisbon, Portugal, my friends start planning weekends at Costa da Caparica or Praia da Ursa — endless days of bikinis, salted hair, and sunburned noses.

I should be excited. Part of me is. But part of me dreads it too.

In theory, I know it shouldn't matter. Real friends don't care about how anyone looks in a bikini. Life isn’t measured by how flat your stomach is. I know all that. But knowing and feeling aren’t the same.

I'm 18 now, technically an adult, but I still feel like the awkward girl tugging at swimsuits in changing rooms. I don't even eat that much. It just runs in the family — softness in the arms, curves in the hips, roundness passed down like a stubborn heirloom. At family gatherings, the women laugh about “a gordura da felicidade” — the fat of happiness. I smile too, but sometimes it stings.

Scrolling through Instagram only sharpens it. I know the pictures are edited, posed, filtered. Still, it feels like everyone else got a different manual on how to exist in their bodies, while I’m stuck fighting mine.

I try not to let it rule me. I remind myself of what I love about myself: my laugh that people say fills a room, the stubborn mind that got me into the university I wanted, the way I show up for the people I love. None of that shrinks or grows with my waistline.

Still, when the first beach day finally comes and my friends peel off their shorts, standing tall and shining in the sun, I’ll hesitate. I know I will. I’ll pretend to fix my bag, to look for something that isn’t there, just to delay standing there too.

Maybe one day, it won’t feel like this. Maybe I’ll run straight into the waves without a thought, feeling the sand burn my feet, not my skin.

Until then, I’ll keep showing up anyway. Maybe that’s what courage looks like — not being fearless, but being scared and stepping forward anyway.