The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy and the Glory of Growing Up

by Evanna Lynch

I believe in the kind of fairy tales that have depth, complexity, profundity and moments of darkness that birth a fiercer belief in light; the kind where the endings are not endings but breakthroughs that lead to the next adventure.

Nobody could seem to get thin, stay thin, be thin enough. Nobody managed it. ‘Thin’ seemed a completely elusive, unattainable state, which made you want to reach for it.

But that’s the tricky thing about art: it’s never strictly good or bad, it’s just expression or excretion. It couldn’t be measured by scales or charts or contained in small manageable segments of the day. It was always, by its very nature, so imperfect – and the imperfections drove me mad. The anxiety and frustration with my creative endeavours turned into an actual fear of blank pages and palettes of paint. There was too much potential and too much room to fail, so, day by day, I chose perfection over creativity; I chose no more creativity and no more mistakes.

Animals. They are so simple, so nice. They don’t care if you eat breakfast or not, if you gain five pounds or lose fifteen; they don’t even care if you eat other animals. And they won’t abandon you when you’re being a selfish, ruthless, conniving bitch, ruining the lives of everyone who loves you. They’ll just continue lolloping along, asking for nothing more than your presence and kindness, a few squeezes of affection.

She possesses this rare, wonderful and yet simple quality of total self-acceptance. With this foundation of complete ease and comfort within herself, she is able to fully immerse herself in the world around her, to look deeply and unselfconsciously into another person’s eyes, to love things without needing to understand them, to listen to other people talk and not worry about how to respond. She is deeply curious about everything around her, absolutely still and attentive at the same time, drinking in every detail and citing aloud her startingly insightful observations on them.

‘It will get easier’ is probably the most offensive thing you can say to someone in the grip of pain. You are borrowing from a future that isn’t promised, a future that depends entirely on their endurance of the pain. You are taking for granted a well of strength within them that they may not possess, fast-forwarding through the ugly bits that you don’t want to watch but they must live through, nonetheless.

Personally, when it comes to anorexia recovery, I don’t approve of solely treating the body and turning a deaf ear to the soul crying out for help. A soul can still drown in a healthy body.

As the noted philosopher Britney Spears sang on her pop hit ‘Circus’: ‘There’s only two types of people in the world/ The ones that entertain and the ones that observe.’

we find our sense of identity either in loving or in being loved. We are the ravisher or the ravishee. If we don’t find a place at the epicentre of the action under the dazzling warmth of the spotlight, we will take our seat ringside, in shadow and clutching snacks, to gaze, transfixed, at the story, because life is a series of stories, and whether we show up as entertainer or observer, we are still an integral part of it.

when something or someone else captivates you to the point of distraction, it is because they are reflecting something within you that is longing to be expressed.

I began to wonder which came first: a strong, healthy, attractive body, or an appreciation for it?

The pictures in the books of hundreds of insects impaled on pins did not look like tributes to their beauty any more, but fatalities of their perfection. Somehow, distracted by the enchanting images, gorgeous bodies and dizzying patterns, I had never noticed that preserving perfection demanded so high a price.

Maybe actual women are always, in their fullest expression, bodies, not ideas or images or dreams of them, and maybe every body changes when we choose to fully live our lives. And maybe I will live a happier, wilder, more colourful and unpredictable life if I can finally abandon the debilitating and brutal pursuit of perfection. If I can learn to love butterflies from afar, and watch them fly away.