The Kind Journal

We rode 42 kilometres. Then she asked me a question I wasn't ready for.

By a Selfawear customer  |  Published in The Kind Journal

The last few kilometres were quiet.

Four of us. Women who'd known each other long enough to stop filling silence with words. We'd been riding since 7am — along the river, through the park, up the hill that none of us mentioned out loud before we got to it. Fifty-four kilometres had been the plan. We'd negotiated it down to forty-two over coffee the week before, and still, by the end of it, our legs had that specific kind of heavy that feels like proof of something.

Sue was the first one off her bike. She unclipped her helmet, pushed her hair back, and looked at me for a long moment.

I thought she was going to say something about lunch.

"Your shirt," she said. "What does it say?"

She read it out loud. "Be kind."

There was a pause. Then: "To who?"

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I laughed. I wasn't expecting the question, or maybe I wasn't expecting what came after it — the beat of quiet before I answered, the way her eyes stayed on me, waiting.

"To yourself," I said.

She looked at the shirt again. Then at me. Something passed across her face that I recognised because I'd worn it for about ten years without knowing it was there.

"Oh," she said. Not sad exactly. More like something clicking into place.

We stood there with our bikes and the sound of the river and none of the other three said a word.

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I've thought about that oh a lot since then.

Because the honest answer is, six months ago I wouldn't have worn that shirt. Not because I didn't believe it — I just didn't apply it to myself. I knew what kindness was. I gave it away constantly. I gave it to my kids in the morning before school and to my mum on weekends and to strangers in queues who were having a hard day. What I didn't do was put it on a list that included me.

I was the person who remembered everyone else's appointments and forgot her own. The one who said I'm fine so many times it stopped being a lie and became just a language I spoke fluently. I was good at keeping all the plates spinning. I just hadn't noticed that none of them were mine.

I didn't decide to change that. It's not like there was a moment where I sat down and said, right, new chapter. It was quieter than that. It started with a shirt.

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The first morning I wore it, I caught myself in the bathroom mirror before I left the house.

I don't usually stop. I do the thing where you check you have everything on and keep moving. But that day I stopped. I read the word — kind — and I held it there for a second. Just a second.

Something about seeing it on yourself is different from thinking it. I can't explain it better than that. When it's out there, visible, on your body — it does something. Not some dramatic shift. Small things. I let the other car in that morning without the internal commentary about it. I answered the school email with patience instead of that particular tight tone I use when I'm behind. I booked a hair appointment I'd been putting off for four months and didn't have a reason for it other than that I wanted to.

Days I wore it, I was gentler. With others. But mostly, eventually, with myself.

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After Sue asked her question, she stood there for a minute and then she pulled out her phone.

She found the brand — Selfawear — in under a minute. Found the be kind. tee. Ordered it right there on the trail, leaning against her bike, while the rest of us were refilling water bottles.

"Done," she said.

Nobody made a big deal of it. We got back on our bikes. But I keep thinking about how quickly she knew. No deliberating. No second-guessing. She read two words on a shirt and knew she needed them.

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A few weeks later I got a message from a friend in Logan. Karen. She'd ordered one after I mentioned it and she said — I'm going to paste it here exactly as she sent it:

"Ok so I'm at Woolies yesterday and this woman just stops in the middle of the aisle. She's reading my shirt. And then she looks at me and goes 'I needed to see that today.' And I don't know why but we both kind of — we both had a moment. Standing there next to the pasta. I just wanted you to know." — Karen, Logan QLD

That's the thing about these shirts. They don't just talk to you. They talk to people who need it and don't know they're going to need it until they see it.

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Another one came in from Michelle, up in NSW. Different situation entirely.

"My daughter reads it every morning before school. She's eight. She doesn't say anything — she just reads it out loud, quietly, like she's checking it's still true. 'Be kind to yourself, Mum.' I didn't teach her that. She just started doing it. I think about that every single day." — Michelle, NSW

I don't think I need to say anything else about that.

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