വഴിതെറ്റി വന്നാരോ പകുതിക്ക് വെച്ച്...

 "Brave." 

"Strong."

"Capable."

Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

Over the past year, superlatives and validation have continuously been heaped on me or attached to my name. To my face, and behind my back, it would seem that people have finally found things worthy of mention. 

It's confused me to no end because I am no different than I was a year ago - when no one could have been particularly buggered to even know where I was or what I was doing.

As it turns out, if your dad drops dead in your arms, being bull-headed and resilient is - all of a sudden - a massive advantage. In fact, it is precisely what everyone else is looking for someone to be, so they can go on with their witteringly careless lives without being burdened by an inconvenient corpse looking for a freezer, an ambulance, and a living soul to accompany it on its final journey. 

In addition to confusing me, this change of affairs has been increasingly infuriating, due no less in part to people seemingly waking from their stupors only to pronounce me marriageable material. 

I have, on a number of occasions, been labeled threatening or dangerous. I'd think of me in my shoddy, disorganized little life, holding everything together with bare wits and the breaths left over by executive dysfunction... and I'd laugh if it weren't quite so dissonant to me. 

For all I've done is speak up for myself. 

I've had to speak up for myself all my life because literally no one else would. There were no friends willing to speak up for me to their friends, the bullies. There were no mothers willing to protect their 14-year-old daughters from the all-consuming wrath and weight of unfettered patriarchy. There were no fathers willing to stay their hands from attempted murder, no brothers willing to turn back on themselves the words of those who opened their lips only to lie. 

Everything, no matter how big or small, came back to roost at my feet or fell heavy on my shoulders, and at some point, it would all become a matter of speak up or die. 

So a silent, painfully shy child learned to speak, and then to speak up louder. She learned to yell, to scream, to throw things, to assault. She learned that anger boiled hot beneath her skin and up into her face, turning her vision red and bringing in with it headaches and fatigue that would have to wait until the evil was vanquished. 

She learned the art of hurtful sarcasm, of bitter jibes, of insults muttered in an undertone. She learned to throw her voice against the walls so they rebounded into the ears of her enemies with the strength of an explosion. She learned to strategize against the powerful generals who led the opposing armies, learned their weaknesses, and in bending herself to the point of the break, learned where their own breaking points lay.

And one by one, she forced them all to their knees.  

In the war of daily life, as with the war of nations, it's always a matter of who can take the most pain without conceding. It's always a matter of... resilience. 

"Brave, strong, capable."

The soldier's job is a filthy one, and worse is the moral burden upon those that command them. As soldier and commander all-in-one, I learned that society was thankful for my bravery, my strength, and my capability... as long as I did not taint their lives with my presence.

Wherever I went, I raised hackles. And of this, I am certain - that many of those who flung degrading epithets at me did not even know why my existence bothered them so much that they couldn't just ignore me as I went about my book-reading and my day-dreaming. 

And as I took each day at a time I gave myself hope - hope of a better future lying in wait just ahead of me. If only I could make it another day, another month, another year, I would find happiness within reach. 

If I could only find it in myself to make it one more day, I thought, surely I would soon find my people. People who loved me for me, around whom I wouldn't have shout or scream or even speak, because they'd care enough to know what I needed without my having to talk about it. 

I dreamed, in short, of a day when I would no longer have to be brave, strong or capable.