The closest I have ever come to witnessing the most unselfish pure human relationship was between my mother and her father. I can recall how I wasn't even fully awake at 5:30 am that morning when i read her text about the demise of my maternal grandfather. I remember the lump in my mother's throat even today when she tells me about her father's advice, "Zindagi mei tumm sabb kuch yahin chhod jaoge. Tumhaare aakhri dinn parr,tumhe ya kisi aur ko wo saari presentations nahi yaad aaengi,tumhe apne rishte yaad aaenge aur logon ko tum." ("You will leave everything behind at the end of your life. On you last day,nobody will remember your presentations, but the relationships you formed and the impact you had on people's lives").
My Maternal Grandfather is the closest I have ever had to having a malewho spoiled me yet would feed me with his hands even when I complain that I am 17 and old enough.
Despite being hurt by the ones they have loved, human beings yearn for relationships. Even a broken heart - scarred by love lost - pursues and rejoices love again. I had a natural outburst to being called as someone with brittle faith by a boy I was seeing. I was immediately smacked out of my Mills-and-Boons induced coma. It hurt me that knowing all about me, how I had to fight, work hard, and read and be intelligent to be attractive, one would still go to the extent of calling me faithless.
I agree, I push people away. And I push them away with all the strength life lessons gave me because people treated me like cigarette breaks and after a certain point, you learn to do anything to protect yourself.
(No sweetheart, I know you are reading this too, I am not complaining.)
Doodh ka jala, chhach ko bhi foonk-foonk ke peeta hai
("One who has been burnt by hot milk, will even blow-to-cool buttermilk before taking a sip")
Substantiating his Mr-know-it-all "not-sugarcoated" statement about A girl who is insecure because she lacks faith in things in her life, he tells me that I was someone he wanted to "improve" (What am I, your second draft?)
Because 'loving someone for who they are, accepting all flaws and everything' is only for fancy Instagram and Pinterest posts
"In real life you have to compromise and change, which involuntarily happens when you want to please the other. That is what improvement is about"
Should I really change my nature to please him? So that being around me would be a little more tolerable? Commenting on the fake sense of affection I have had throughout my life, according to him, He doesn't stay far behind before coming to another conclusion saying :
~ That in all the other romantic relationships before this nobody ever called me out on my insecurities and So He chose to highlight my insecurities, risked the relationship Only to "Help" me out Because I needed to "accept" things about myself ~
What kind of things did I need to accept? That I do not trust people easily? (Well who does these days) That being around me is difficult because my mood changes every 6 seconds from being fenty like Rihanna to being Britney Spears in 2007?
To him, I am just a runner - who runs away from problems for I am someone who kept hopping in and out of relationships for a decade
Who has a difficult family life because her Dad is in the Armed Forces
Who just wallows in self-pity
Who wears her wounds as badges when she should work on her flaws
The flaws - that he so proudly pointed out
Who is not a warrior, because she is weak from within
Who is living in a delusion of a perfect-rosy life
aaaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!
All these "righteous" fucks thinking they can waltz in and fire shots at my self esteem and get away with it?
I'll give him this, he was good with words. Could even form witty sentences for most part of our conversations,
But love is never too intellectual to get away with right?
So every time I beat him to his own argument or called Him on his insensitive comments, I went to sleep without an I love you.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
NO, you are not insensitive for being careful about the amount of dependence you build in relationships.
My story, My faithless-wallowing-in-self-pity-unsure-of-myself story,
I was the kid your mother warned you about;
when everybody in class was too busy making Instagram posts and updating their LIT lives on Facebook,
I was sitting under the lampshade,
Sometimes even candlelight,
Heck, I have old family albums with photographs where I am studying in the light that peeks from under the door of the washroom in my Dad's Shankar Vihar Air Force accommodation
Putting ideas in ink as if the world depended on my tiny, crooked shoulders like fireflies depend on darkness to be noticed;
Shoulders which were still swollen from the knuckles of Men in my life who used their superiority to tell me that I wasn't pretty enough to be this bossy;
"Aakhir kis baat ki akad hai ismei? Kis schaal ki akad hai?"
"Shakal toh dekho? Suar jaisi naak"
"Bahot zyada attitude hai yaar Joshita Mei"
"Chuck her face, fuck the base"
and when Books, Dance Team, Sports, Academics, Student Council and Traveling didn't leave me with time to worry about anything else, I was sucked deeper into a world of depression and anxiety.
My mental health got worse with every passing year since I turned 17.
"I only befriended you because I thought you were edgy and too open for a girl, so you wouldn't mind some giving and taking. Friends with Benefits?"
"Yeah, we have been good friends, but you are just a distraction to me right now"
How easy it was for people to judge my enthusiastic nature about life as my availability to pleasure them
I was slut-shamed right left and center because everyone believed their "version" of the story of a senior whom I made the mistake of trusting once when I had a little too much to drink. I learnt my lesson of there not being something "too careful".
I was labeled just another tease by the boy who is now the Student Council President because 'girls don't want friends, they just want to have fun'.
If people still wonder why I find 13 Reasons Why relatable, well picture Hannah Baker's High School as my Undergraduate University life for 3 years,
From boys using me to climb their social standing ladder to friends who cut me out for new ones
I became the girl everyone whispered in hushed tones about and chuckled, And I am still the girl people love to spread rumors about
The difference is, it did not end for me, I am still living my story
I still remember the time my own friend used the word "slut" on me
Because being smart, ambitious, opinionated and a woman?
No Honey, Calm your titties
We will build you up, only to cut you down
I don't see others as below me
I only see myself a little taller
Because very early on in my life, I was called an "Overachiever"
As if it was a disgrace to be;
made me feel like I was biting off more than I could chew;
because School isn't meant for kids with dreams
It is not cool to be a scholar, it is not impressive to be a factually consistent,
"Bold" is never a compliment,
Cats aren't cute if they are Schrodinger's
And when slambooks ask you for your ambition in life, trust me it is only a rhetorical question
I remember how I learnt to swim when I was 4 years old,
No floats or tubes
Trusting my own limbs to cut through the water and move me forward
Even when my lungs felt like giving up
But I was stronger than anything trying to break me down.
My faith has been constantly tested in relationships and in my own ability
I am a work in progress, and I do not feel the need (yet) to change to please someone
My once endearing stubbornness has become a refusal to compromise and my one track mind is now immaturity and my impulsive nature is reckless and irresponsible for a relationship
and my demand of commitment is no longer sexy, just another distraction in his busy life.
Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I am now ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.
I've been told that everybody loves to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels, But then they feel threatened of that BITCH because she knows what she wants and she knows how she's going to get it,
The girls who were unanimously considered beautiful often rested on their beauty alone
I felt I had to do things, be confident in my skin, to be intelligent and develop a personality in order to be seen as attractive.
By the time I realized maybe I wasn't plain and might even possibly be pretty,I had already trained myself to be a little more interesting and informed
But i am yet to have moments in my life where i can truly celebrate my victory of building myself while everyone else isn't too busy trying to break me down Or put me in my place Or shaming me behind my back (because lets be honest, you do not have the balls to come talk to me in real life)
I am not seeking attention.
I have accepted many things as negatives for the photograph of my life
And when I was a kid I used to run races
And leave all the fuckers behind only because
I loved gold medals a little more than silver ones;
Atelophobic - that's what I have become,
I am still that kid who is an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist - I have only learned to tame it now;
and I don't know if I am too much to make you run away and hide scared like a child?
