Time Incomparable or

What’s another word for growth?

December 31st, 2017 - January 30, 2019

This is difficult for me to relay to you.

Often, I do not reanimate past events with my words until sufficient time has passed. I’m not sure how or why, but it is the length of time felt necessary to create padding between me (today) and me (back then). The two cannot touch until the wounds have scabbed over and long healed.

So, this is difficult for me to relay to you, because there’s only a year of padding between me (today) and me (back then).

I ushered in 2018 with tears, betrayal, and complete and utter heartbreak.

This wasn’t a break-up in the Western conventional sense, but more like glass balls of trust had been smashed cruelly against the wall, the shards left to collect dust and remain broken. The feeling leaves a bad taste on my tongue as I remember it now. I can sense the sleeping snake of anxiety in my stomach stirring.

None of what took place during that week was on my terms. Control over my life, my emotions, and my future was wrenched from me in the name of tradition, replaced with the ominous call of complacency; I was being invited to give up the chase.

But rather than refuse, I revolted.

Perhaps that was an overreaction.

Perhaps this quiet analysis of past behavior is made easier with that year-long padding between me (today) and me (back then).

Perhaps that anger was justified.

Perhaps there was no space for me to develop empathy towards the people that hurt me.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter what their intention was.

All these perhaps and then some, but the biggest perhaps is this -

Perhaps I didn’t need to shut myself in my room for months on end, planning, plotting, thinking, and just breathing.

It doesn’t really matter.

The fact of that day was this:

I was ambushed into having a conversation with a potential (arranged) marriage candidate on New Year’s Eve.

The subjective facts are these:

Without warning, without any permission to allow this to take place, my heart dropped into the darkest pit it could find inside me. My mouth went dry. I felt my heart beat faster from everywhere and nowhere all at once. My fingers started trembling, then my shoulders, and then my entire body. I was “spinning around like a stupid top spinning around on top of nothing, looking everywhere, even though there’s absolutely nothing, nothing anywhere” (House of Leaves, 27). I had a breakdown steps away from the group of ambushers crowding around laptop, quietly talking and asking questions, taking turns to deal with the breakdown.

I put a shoe on, checked for keys in my pocket and my glasses on my face. I heard one of the ambushers say “this doesn’t look good.” I took the shoe off to throw it at their head. I heard, “Just stand in the background, you don’t have to say anything, you don’t even have to look at the screen, just stand in the background.” I screamed inside my head. My eyes have transformed into salty waterfalls. Is this an impression they were okay with making on this potential marriage candidate? I put a shoe back on and gripped the bench to calm myself. This wasn’t so bad. I heard, “You’re embarrassing me right now.” I looked up into the eyes of my ambusher and saw only disgust. I looked past their eyes, behind their head, begging; I looked for a friend and found a room full of strangers. The shivers came back, in waves now, over and over and over again.

My throat began to hurt. Salty waterfalls ran dry as I reached for the other shoe only for it to be wrenched away from my hands. I said, “Leave me alone. I want to leave.” I heard, “You can’t leave. What do you think you’re doing? Just go to your room.” I waited, pondered, thought about running out with one-shoe, car keys, and glasses on my face. Someone stood in front of the door. I made my way to the stairs, one shoe on foot, car keys in my pocket, glasses on my face. Someone stood in front of the stairwell. “Aise sab accha nahin lagta hai. His brother is here with us, now. It’s not respectful. Please, out of respect, just come say hi at least.” I wonder if the potential marriage candidate could hear what was going on. Am I not being loud enough? I yelled. What kind of person hears this sort of commotion - a girl yelling, screaming, begging to be left alone - and continues to answer questions? What kind of person continues to wish to marry a person who yelled, “I’d rather kill myself than show him my face?” What kind of person deserves such high level of respect? Someone else guides me up the stairs, in their arms. I hear whispers of “It’s okay! It’s okay! You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

But through the whispers, I heard, “Can you believe this reaction?”

Through the whispers, I heard glass balls of trust being thrown against the ground.

Through the whispers, I felt myself don an armour of glass shards, broken trust weaponized for protection.

I get under my covers, pull them over my head, and wait for the shaking sobs to subside. I am not in control.

The fact of that week was this:

I spent three days in bed, sneaking to the kitchen to feed myself only after everyone else had gone to bed.

I talked to no one. No one talked to me. I thought about no one but myself.

On the third day, I told one of the ambushers that I was going to tell the truth today. Then I stood in front of all three of them and said, “I’m bisexual.” The subsequent reaction led to a three-month relationship with the worst depression I have ever experienced.

I was saved only by myself, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

The subjective facts of that week

still echo in different parts of me (today). Even though a year of padding exists, I can feel the impression of me (back then) through them, crying and clawing; those wounds have scabbed but it’s hard to resist the itching. The subjective facts of that week remain unanimated by my words today.

That was the start of 2018 - I began the year all control being wrenched from me.

I spent most of the year trying to get that control back, and failing, miserably, over and over and over again.

This was the start of 2019.

My actions were deliberate and calculated as I walked around my room, cleaning and cleansing. The old notes from semester past were stowed away in their appropriate place. A fresh desk calendar sat waiting under the light of the lamp. On the nearby shelf, a comforting book if required. In the closet, an emergency box is ready to step in just in case last years’ events are repeated or get reanimated as I inhabit the same space with the same ambushers. Neither comfort was required.

Over this past year, I’ve had some truly amazing experiences. I had the one-in-a-lifetime chance to explore the world by myself, carving a path for me to travel more and travel alone.

I got a chance to prove myself. I got a chance to truly understand what it’s like to live by myself.

I got the chance to realize what I wanted in my future.

I got the chance to realize who I wanted in my future.

But more than anything, the thing I cherish the most - I got the chance to wrench control over my life, my emotions, and my future back into my hands. However weak these reigns may feel in my inexperienced hands, they imbue me with an intrinsic sense of love and pride for myself. It is freedom to feel in control of yourself.

The fact of the day is this:

It was an unremarkable day.

Which is to say, nothing out of the ordinary took place, which is all I could have hoped for and more. I decided to spend the first day of the year taking my time, spending it with warm company and even warmer food, exchanging letters and gifts, and surrounding myself with reminders of the potential my future held.

The subjective facts of the day are this,

and this is difficult for me to relay to you, but, the start to this year was absolutely, truly unremarkable. Scrolling through instagram, I saw the overwhelmingly remarkable evenings people were enjoying. And I clutched to my unremarkable day, a little ashamed of how plain it was.

But after a few days of counting my wistful what if’s, I’ve decided that unremarkable is beautiful.

Last year, I started my year by convincing myself that it was going to be an amazing year. I put all my hopes and dreams into how the year started, on an arbitrary date on a calendar, that still has 364 more days, some that are arguably more important than Dec 31 or Jan 1. And when reality shook me by the shoulders, those hopes and dreams were washed away with my tears. I spent months recovering not only from the betrayal, but also from the utter shame I felt at having “ruined” my perfect year.

But this year, with its unremarkable, ordinary start, I’m choosing not to put so much weight on how a day or a week unfolds to determine what the rest of the year will look like. This year, rather than celebrating the start of a new year, I silently applauded myself for still breathing, happy and loved, in spite of the pain of back then.