I am in my twenties, a brown girl bought up in a fairly middle-class household. My whole life ( near to a quarter now) has been a series of people-pleasing, learning, and a lot of un-learning.
I have seen floods, draughts, covid-19, and a lot of heartbreaks, none of which affected me in my personal space. I left the place a day before the flood. My family made sure I never heard of a draught before it was over. I did catch covid-19 but that was in the third wave and it didn’t cause me much pain. I watched my closest friends lose their parents and dear ones to covid. I watched my dearest get their hearts broken as I sat with them through it. I witnessed so much pain and even felt it through my empath behavior but never faced it. Does this make me lucky? or Does this make me a horrible person who fakes her values?
The only thing I constantly ponder over is what is wrong with me? I never loved somebody. I never trusted anybody. I’ve never even shown my truest self to a single person in this entire world or do I even have a self to show?
I can understand everyone. I can empathize with everyone. I can solve everybody’s issues. I can listen to you talk about absolutely anything with utmost sincerity and never judge you for anything. I never hold grudges. I never hated anybody. I don’t like to break the rules but I do break them instantly for other people’s needs and also like the rush. What do I actually want to do with rules?
Am I too privileged? but I am not. I have faced abuse. mental, physical, sexual, financial, materialistic, and psychological. None of my family knows. My closest friends have hurt me countless times. They never realized and I never told. Again my fault. My health deteriorated into a bottomless decline — everything is always fine and everything is always not. I have always been hurt by never being understood. always misunderstood — always called fake. never once heard when I actually spoke. Never once seen when I struggled to even move and managed to show up for them somehow. How did I end up in this state?
I assume I never quite grasped the concept of being myself, of being present in the moment. I am a true water sign. I always shift my form to wherever I am and whatever I am put into. I have so many personalities, I fail to recognize what’s real. Yet, I hang by a thread, a voice — that never shuts up — that is in my head constantly brewing up opinions, evil thoughts, judgments, sadness and the amount of unexpressed love the voice holds for everything and everyone around me shakes me up to the reality that I may or I do have a personality — A strong one at that.
This is a ridiculous contemplation, isn’t it? Sometimes I am so focused on being a good person and doing right by everybody that I forget that I am human. I blur my own boundaries just for a random stranger and when my space is invaded, my heart is always broken and I cry. No one has seen me cry though except a very few where I did let my walls down to be human. I am often called cold and at the same time people reach out to me when they need warmth the most.
I sometimes just want to be a combination of the people around me so I can show them a piece of how I feel when they act a certain way. ( definitely not proud of feeling this way) Again My fault as I didn't tell them. How are they supposed to know? Why are my thoughts always in a cluster?
This brings me back to a speck of dust on my screen. As I wipe it out I see the words as words and not my feelings — The ones I spoke, the ones I didn’t. The bottled-up hurt, The unvented anger, and all the real love I could never shower even while showering everybody with it because it might seem overwhelming and fake. All I have are questions. and yet I have all the answers.
My 15-year-old self would be satisfied with this life cause my 24-year-old self is definitely where I smile openly, love in measure ( as much as I can control ), live decently, and cry secretly. Maybe the dream life I never ever dreamt of.
“Is this all you want?” — She might ask. Maybe in 5 years, I can answer.
Except I already know the answer. No. I want more. I want everything. I am open to pain. I am open to hurt. I am always open to loving and being loved while being grateful for whatever I already get. I am open to the universe to let me live. A life I can tell stories about. A life I can proudly say was mine. Life may be where my weight, rent, and inflation don’t touch the sky high up. LOL.
This seems quite like a rant but that is where you are wrong. I am a person who writes.
AND people who write are always cursed — To say so much with their words and yet have a thousand words that are left unsaid.
