By Meera Manoj
All my life, I’ve asked people who I am. I’ve looked for who I am between hands and eyes
which were never mine. The thing is, I didn’t know how to exist without being loved. I didn’t
know how to exist without being known.
Thinking about a childhood that was spent learning cartography; connecting the lines
between the points where their lips end and measuring the distance between their eyes and
cheeks, mapping out how upset or angry they are before they tell me how upset or angry they
are. My mother sometimes tells me that I raised her more than she raised me. I think she’s
wrong. And unfair. Nevertheless, I think we both did decently with what we got.
At 17, I was never there. I lived in my head and spinned recklessly and talked too loud and
never listened. I never let myself be tired and I loved it when the one I had said they hated
everyone except me. I knew everything and couldn’t wait to be listened to and loved to jump
off the deep end without thinking. I mastered the art of my body and mastered the art to
puppet my mind and shut the pain of not belonging to anyone deep inside.
I know you like the back of my hand, my mother tells me. I let her think that. Or maybe she
does. I think about how much I know about her and then I think about how much of those are
things she crafted for me to specifically think that way. Am I not doing the same? Maybe she’s
right. She knows we are cut from the same cloth. But did we do the same things with the cloth
that we got? I don’t know.
There’s something that happens when you don’t know how to apologise. Every mistake feels
like the last. Every error seems like it will be met with radio silence before it’s brushed under.
But being a human is more work than that. Here you are given a choice to accept and
apologise. I don’t know why the words “I’m sorry” felt like the end of the world. Then here
you are, apologising to me for something menial and forgiveness poured out of me.
How could it not?
My father is a light sleeper. I think I learned how to walk on my toes before I learned how to
walk on my feet to not disturb him. It’s because of the constant night shifts, my mother tells
me. He once let it slide that his father passed away on the bed that they shared and ever since
then even the slightest noises wakes him up. Growing up a certain way alters us forever. You
sleep with your eyes open. I can’t stop myself from walking on my toes and on eggshells.
When does it end for us?
I think my younger self would find current-me boring. I might agree with her. I have learned
that life doesn’t have to be loud and painful to be worth living. It’s here, snuggled like a baby
in my arms every morning. It’s angry when it understands that the one I had had very little
practice being kind, because it doesn’t take much to like people. It’s patient when I sit close
to the one I love but can’t have. It’s learning that it doesn’t have to be anything for me to be
proud of it. It learns that family is not the only one who will show up. Only a fool who has
never loved- not unconditionally at least- is the only one who would think so.
My mother called me beautiful at 16 for the first time and I never believed her. All my life
everyone told me that I look like her. I was happy with that. She wasn’t. All she did was point
out flaws within herself every time she walks past something reflective. She gets offended
when I don’t find myself agreeing to her complimenting me. How can I? You gave me this and
you gave me the hate that came along with it. People aren’t the problem, ma, it’s us. We
started this.
Sometimes you think that if you were just given one long look. One actual concerning look.
You think that would have solved most of the problems. But then it doesn’t happen and one
day very well into your adulthood you see someone else get that treatment and suddenly it’s
like a bullet lodged into your throat. Does this mean you could have gotten the same help but
was just not offered? Since that is a painful morsel to digest, you don’t. The reality splits into
two. The one where people are connected and understood and yours in which you were alone.
Which is another hard truth to swallow and so you spit out venom. You are superior. You
solved the issue on your own. Self sufficiency and dignity become the steps towards the
throne of your God complex. Because what do you mean they are so weak that they need
help? What do you mean they can’t just endure it? Pathetic.
My father never showed any emotion besides happiness and devotion. I knew that he was
faking most of the time. I knew that he worried constantly and I knew that his forehead gets
lines when he’s worried. But I know now that it was necessary. I know that it’s such a tough
world out here and that we can’t change anyone. I know that I would also do the same to
bring happiness to the only people important to me. Even at the cost of my own sanity.
The raw humanness of feeling absolutely gloated upon your God complex of hah I do not
need anyone and also I just need to be held and worshipped despite all the bad I’ve done. It’s
terrifying to think of, so lonely and sad and I’m in over my head when you’re changing the
song in the car and telling me how this song makes you think of us.
I don’t want to be God anymore. Not when you are here. Not when I can see us in this light
and laugh while the sun works hard to break us into a sweat.
I’m 20 when my mother says she’s proud of me. At that point, I could think of a million other
reasons she would say that to me other than me making her congealed pasta. Like when I
cleaned up my room after one particular week. Like when I still made it to college even when
I didn’t want to. Like when I stop myself from sulking and whining when I don’t get attention.
But I would never tell you all this.
The one who loves me knows me and I’m afraid. They have made me lean on them for
several things. They see you when you don’t want to be seen. They know that I hate the idea
of going to the beach (because sand everywhere) but I love being there (look at the sea
always coming back!). Their language has taken birth under my tongue and their hands guide
mine in the way I do my hair and God, it’s terrible. This is hurting before the hurt has started.
I don’t have the tools to deal with this. What if I end up being a fool?
I’m 21 when I told you that I don’t envision a future with kids of my own. You told me that it
makes you sad, but ultimately makes sense. You couldn’t do it. A lot changes when ‘don’t
want’ becomes ‘can’t do’. Maybe I exhausted my emotional reserve trying to decipher things
days and months before you told me. And you’re right. I am impatient. I don’t have the
softness. I am either too loud or too quiet. I find it hard to come to a middle ground. I am
emotionally closed off. You say that I carry too much from the past and that people don’t need
to remember all of it. You’re right. Just tell me where to put it all down.
Tell me this, when I do good things, does that make me good? Or is that just an act of
redemption for the bigger picture? My needs hurt me more than anything. Fine. Signed a deal
with the universe that I don’t need anyone. Scoffed and raised my head upward toward the
sky when offered company. An act of defiance. I wash the anger off my hands but my hands
still remain. Was anyone ever so young? I’ve never felt more like a child than now. So much
of my life feels like a performance, a craft perfected while breaking my back and a gash on
my forehead only to be met with a mirror as the jury.
Through all the noise however, all I ever wanted was to come back to you. A starting point
formed at the moment you both held both of my hands and did the silly faces through the
classroom window when I held back tears for the first time. I watched through the window
when you went back crying all the way after dropping me off at college. I desperately want to
come back home. I’m just not sure where home is anymore.
Was it really an act of defiance? Or was that just me asking for permission to break the deal?
I hope the universe closed their eyes for sometime the first time I let someone take care of
me. A dream that night shows me my mother in her girlhood, an empty bench next to her
waiting to be filled. When no one comes, I get up. Call the one who loves me and tell them
“I’m ready. Come make a fool of me”
Thinking about how I will never know my parents beyond their identity as my parents. The
boundary they draw at “I’m your parent” when intrusive questions are asked stops us from
crossing that threshold. I know for a fact that at that threshold lies a lot of answers but I also
know that over there lies a lot of raw wounds that still haven’t healed. So I let you lie to me. I
take it point blank when you tell me you’re fine. I tell you I’m fine too. We then talk about
the weather.
Hot Pot Magazine 