By Sharika Sriramanan
*TRIGGER WARNING: sexual violence, manipulation*
2022:
She stood there at the pier admiring the glorious sunset before her.
She stood there alone, music ringing in her ears, watching the ducks glide along the water in front of her, their movement mirrored by their counterparts gracefully sweeping their way across the sky above them.
She stood there, humming to the music, heart full; with so much gratitude, joy, and peace flowing through her that she thought she’d explode from the force of it.
Fierce love, the strength of which she hadn’t anticipated, pulsed inside of her and she had to catch her breath from the force of it all.
She had been told; hell, she had told herself that she wouldn’t feel any of this if she didn’t follow the rules, if she didn’t listen to what other people said her life should look like.
But there she was, happy, peaceful, joyful, independent, and full of love.
It felt so good to have her gamble work out.
But then again, it was less a surrender to luck and more a consistent practice of improving herself each time she stumbled across a problematic idea.
The whole process had been the most exhausting, most gruelling, most demanding task she had ever taken on. She hadn’t anticipated the expanse of it when she had relented into doing this difficult work.
She had known it would be hard, but had never even come close to predicting the extent of it, the depth of the darkness she would see, the number of blindfolds that would be removed, the life altering spiral she would be swept along on when she finally saw all of it.
A lot of it had been unexpected to say the least, but she was grateful for it.
It had been an insanely chaotic and difficult journey, but here she was, full of life and joy watching a sunset at the lake and that was enough.
It had all been worth it.
She felt herself acknowledge her gratitude as she went back to watching the sun set behind the backdrop of the mountains.
2006 (?):
She had been asleep.
She jarred awake with the distinct recognition of the fact that something was wrong, that there was something happening right now that was splitting her life into a before and after.
She stilled, brain immediately jumping into survival mode, assessing the situation happening around her.
She felt someone grope her from behind, touch her in places she hadn’t been touched in before this.
Felt a breath in her ear, felt sweaty legs try to wrap themselves around her.
Her uncle.
She had fallen asleep in their bedroom that night, hearing her aunt talk in the background about the possibility of having to take night calls from the hospital if any emergency cases came in.
The house had been packed with people, her cousins and brother wanting to have an only boys sleepover, claiming the spare bedroom, leaving her to crash with her aunt and uncle for the night.
They would be talking about sports, their annoying cricket scores and the stats, about the specifics of the endless games they had played through the last few days of their vacation.
So boring, she thought. I’d rather just sleep in peace through the night.
Terror coursed through her as she put the pieces together, her young twelve year old brain reeling with the implications of it all.
The blue nightlight glowed, the peace of that light taunting her from the corner of the room.
The bright yellow numbers of 23 blinked at her from the screen of the AC while it pumped cold air into the room that was suddenly starting to feel very hot.
This wasn’t right.
This wasn’t okay.
She didn’t want this happening.
But she had no idea what to do.
Should she scream?
Would he hurt her?
Was her aunt there?
Someone please tell me what to do.
Please.
The decision got taken for her when she was being turned around.
She didn’t want to know what would happen.
She’d rather take her chances with standing her ground.
She pushed him away, peeling his hands off her, throwing the thick woollen blankets off her, not knowing what to do or where to go, just knowing, not here, not here, please, anywhere but here.
She jumped out of bed, running to the other side of the room where the door was, desperate to get to a place where she could just think straight again.
Then it happened.
He reached out, caught her hand as she tried to get away, saying the most impossible words to her.
Come back.
She stopped for a minute despite everything because of all the words she expected, it wasn’t that.
Come back and lie down, he smiled at her.
Fighting the nausea that was starting to build up in her throat, she yanked her hand out of his, opened the door and ran out to the hall and rooms beyond, slamming the door of the bathroom shut behind her, desperately trying to catch her breath.
She sat there, terror flowing through her, now being joined by confusion and resignation.
Feelings much bigger that what her pre-teenage brain and body could handle were coursing through her and a subconscious decision was taken at that moment to shut it down.
Dissociation became her friend.
Her breathing slowed, her tears stopped flowing, her body stopped shaking.
She walked back to that room, tried falling asleep on the other side of the bed but jarred awake to panic every ten minutes before she finally gave up, walked to another bedroom and fell asleep, this time stomach down, protecting anything that anyone might want to touch.
She fell asleep with the distinct recognition that her life had changed and woke up the next day with the light in her eyes extinguished and no one was any the wiser.
She would spend the next decade dissociating from the incident, shutting down each time he held her hand or took her picture or made her pose.
Not recognising why she felt so numb, not realising why things felt so heavy, why she hated people touching her, why she hated woollen blankets and nightlights, why she hated men, hated their entitlement.
But she somehow also knew it wouldn’t change because people dismissed her experiences when she spoke about random strangers groping her on public transport, when she heard hushed questions about what someone had done or what someone had worn when they came forward with an accusation.
She was asking for it.
What did she expect, walking around in tight clothes and makeup, being so loud and opinionated and happy?
How dare she challenge a man’s space and strength?
How can she dare to assume she has any worth, any value, any power to take up space, not obey, not be submissive?
She wasn’t strong enough to handle all that right now.
So the dissociation continued to happen, darkness heavy enough to extinguish her sunny disposition poured itself over her life and she continued, none the wiser, knowing in her bones that something was wrong but having no cognitive recollection of the same.
Books became her escape, the endless stories of justice, of revenge, of her favourite characters facing impossible situations, of finding incredible strength within themselves, of ending up happy, ending up safe, bringing her intense comfort.
She made her own bubble of comfort and safety in that darkness over the years and it held her close in that cocoon till she was ready to come out.
2017:
She was next in line to receive her degree.
She was giddy.
She couldn’t quite believe that she had managed to get through her insane course; that she had managed to get through the impossible hurdle of the last few years, which somehow had seemed even more chaotic than her previous years put together.
The memories of her trauma had resurfaced finally, a good 5 months before her final year exams, a madness and terror that she had been completely unprepared for.
Agreed, she herself had taken the decision to finally stop running, that she had finally surrendered to that call for greater things, that she had been so exhausted from physical illness and heartbreak that she no longer had the strength to keep the walls of the dissociation up anymore.
Agreed, but still.
It had been almost 10 years to the day of that nightmare.
10 years of that darkness, of escape.
10 years, of building my strength up to fight it, she thought fiercely.
She had surrendered to it.
The terror, the helplessness, the shame and the fear of it all.
Grief, the likes of which she had never imagined, would find her as she was going through her day, bringing her down to her knees with the force of it all.
It seemed like her emotions had been building up their strength over the years too.
She would have to excuse herself to her room, to the bathroom of the study hall, to the random walks through the campus just to give it a safe space to come out finally.
She lost the façade she had been building up, lost the tough act and softened for the first time in forever.
She felt alive.
She felt something that wasn’t just heavy numbness.
She felt terror, she felt shame, she felt grief.
But she also felt hope.
She felt gratitude, she felt courage.
She sat through it.
Through the impossible situation of it all.
Alone.
The people she thought she could trust seemed to have their own ideas, their own ways of protecting themselves that didn’t involve her.
She struggled with ideas of being true to herself, with ideas of feeling worthy, brave and strong when people just wanted her to just get over it already.
Stop stressing me out, seemed to be the common message.
She withdrew to her room again, hidden in the safety of her hostel, back to her words and work, but this time, using that cocoon to create a safe space for her healing.
And it had worked.
Almost impossibly.
But it had.
Sometimes it was a close call.
She had given up and a friend had read out the portions to her a day before one of her exams.
She had fallen sick, lost weight, couldn’t keep food down, binge ate junk food.
She had spiralled and cried and been broken a thousand times over.
But she had made it.
Here she was.
She stood there by the side of the stage, soaking it all up, pride and gratitude and joy coursing through her as she walked across the stage to collect the degree she had so wanted to get.
Look at you go, Starlight.
2016:
She didn’t know why she was there.
She was pretty sure the whole concept of doing a study in that department was insane.
She had been made to wait and was thrown around for so long that she was beginning to suspect that they were just making up excuses to avoid having to deal with that headache.
She was starving, she realised.
She was about to leave for lunch when one of her seniors walked in.
She recognised him from around campus, knew about him being on the basketball team with some random snippets of gossip she had heard about his recent breakup.
He walked up to her to say hello and they had started up a conversation about their postings.
She paused for a bit, her world stilling for a heartbeat while it was washed over by THAT feeling.
Explore this. This will be important.
A sort of peace, an instinct, that it would necessary to at least try.
She surprised both of them in asking for his number, surprised herself even more when they started talking, surprised by how different it felt, how light, to the heaviness she usually carried around.
She vaguely recognised she was carrying around this very new feeling about a week into talking to him.
She had to sit with it for a while before she recognised what it was she was feeling.
Safe.
She felt safe.
There was a thought that ran through her head after that that quietened her.
Why was feeling safe a new feeling she didn’t recognise?
Something was wrong, wasn’t it?
She spent time with him long enough to understand that she would fall for him, that he was in the midst of his own intense heartbreak, that she would be in a lot of pain if she didn’t leave right away.
She tried to leave, she really did.
Just that he was the one thing that made her feel safe in the world, the one thing that gave her some hope of things being different, someone who saw her and helped her through an impossibly terrible situation, who caused love in depths she didn’t think she was capable of feeling to explode in her chest, who calmed her down and stopped her nightmares and panic attacks.
And losing that one thing ripped her apart in ways she hadn’t ever anticipated.
Walking away and dealing with her trauma coming up had been one thing.
She had worked through her panic as well as she could on her own, her heartbreak being an added note to the symphony of the tales of how unloved and unworthy and broken she was that seemed to be continuously playing through her head.
She ran into him again later, a random coincidence that would change a lot of things in both their lives.
Sat across the table, asking what was happening in his life; so much, so incredibly much, depending on the honesty of that answer.
In response to the silence, she had decided to trust him with her story, had poured out the whole thing, the trauma coming up, the disclosure at home, the uselessness of it all.
How she had been drowning, how she couldn’t breathe, had been vulnerable enough to ask him to help her only to be told that it might not be the best idea.
She would find out later that he had been dating someone else, that he just hadn’t thought it important to tell her.
She had only fought years of indoctrination of being told to shut up, that trusting people was scary, to be vulnerable and finally, finally, finally be open to the idea of asking for help.
Big deal, you’ll get over it.
You assumed, it wasn’t your business to know, we weren’t dating anyway.
Stop being a drama queen and embarrassing yourself.
She would later find out they broke up, be faced again with a broken hearted boy that would not chose her, but this time, she would be filled with intense resentment and self-hatred at not her being able to stay gone because her terror would not let her sit still.
I don’t want to date, I am not in love with you, you are confusing everything up, we are just friends, you’re so important to me, I am in so much pain, I know you are in love with me, I know you need me to calm down, let’s stay up talking and laughing about everything, here, listen to these songs, stop yelling at me about screwing with your head, you are leading yourself on, just leave then, no one is keeping you here.
She had heard the word toxic so many times she lost count, she didn’t know how to explain to her friends that she needed to feel safe from the terror of being abused more than needing to do the right thing, while also knowing that he was struggling too and not wanting to make things more difficult for him.
Her friends realised the helplessness of her situation quite clearly when they saw her shake with a panic attack and not have anything work in slowing it down other than having him talk her through it.
They didn’t know what to do other than hold her when she struggled between the balance of keeping herself safe and needing to not be stuck in a less than ideal situation.
She knew that he was one of the main reasons she survived her trauma come up, that she owed him for that.
She just also knew she hated herself for how helpless she was.
It seemed impossible, a dead silence ringing out into the abyss when he cut her off after he claimed to have been disrespected in an argument. His self-respect taunting her saying look at what you put yourself through instead.
It would take years for her to finally look back at that situation without feeling small, for them to repair their relationship enough to be friends again.
The love she had realised she was capable of experiencing had been the most incredible realisation.
That had given her a glimmer of the kind of life she could have outside of the cocoon that her trauma had built around her and that had been enough.
She was going to reclaim her life.
She would learn to do it without depending on anyone else too.
It had taken long enough.
2022:
She walked along the footpath, music ringing out from her earphones, a quiet joy overcoming her as she explored the new city she had moved into.
She had chores to get done in her new independent home and she had started to mentally cross things off her list as she went from one place to another, looking at which products would be best for her, which shops offered the best deals, which areas were better accessible to her, which areas offered her good options to park her car.
She smiled thinking back to how household tasks had terrified her, how the thought of cooking or maintaining a house would send her into a panic, how she had struggled with the terror of learning to drive a car when she had first been handed the keys.
She wasn’t the biggest fan of clichés, but everything amazing actually HAD been on the other side of fear and she was quite glad she regulated herself through all of that to get to a place where she was comfortable doing them now.
She was now driving on highways, parking in tiny spaces, cooking elaborate meals and being an adult.
She had done everything herself, applying to this new job, arranging her stuff in her new place, set up a kitchen, all of it.
It seemed so impossible for her to be the same person that had hated the idea of growing up.
Here she was, independent, strong, intelligent, and with so much faith in herself that she wasn’t scared to be alone anymore.
She enjoyed adulting.
Giddy with the feeling of gratitude and joy, she hummed along to her favourite songs as she went about her very normal day.
About time, she thought.
Definitely took long enough.
2017:
She knew that something was wrong.
She wasn’t supposed to hate being touched.
She would jump every time someone came close to her, hated hugs, hated small spaces, hated sharing her bed, hated sleepovers in places she didn’t know, didn’t like unfamiliar places, preferred baggy clothes and large personal spaces.
She didn’t like people looking at her. It made her feel like she had a target on her back.
She stopped dancing. She stopped getting out of the house as much.
She stopped jumping into hugs, she stopped offering them out.
She would startle easily, jumping when someone brushed their hand across her, pushing past people who would come too close.
Needless to say, she stayed away from romantic relationships.
She didn’t want to be vulnerable, thank you.
She didn’t enjoy their confusion as she jumped away from their advances, she couldn’t make them understand that it wasn’t them, don’t you see, I don’t trust people, I don’t feel safe, I don’t like being touched like that.
Grown adults didn’t understand that, never mind teenage boys with hormones raging.
She had been filled with a feeling that she would be assaulted at any moment, a quiet terror that had filled her since that night.
And that quiet terror had protected her, shielded her from innocent and confused boys, from creepy assaulters on public transport, from further advances from that uncle.
The terror had worsened one night as her friend leaned in to kiss her, not waiting to see if she had been okay with it all.
Okay, maybe it didn’t work all the time.
It had been quite surprising when that feeling slowly faded as she faced her trauma and felt safer in her own skin.
She still hated being touched though.
THAT instinct came over her again and it stopped her in her tracks for a minute.
She looked, incredulous, at the worst possible person that could have set it off.
A playboy who would 10000% screw her over.
You have got to be kidding me, she thought, that thought giving away to quiet astonishment as he proceeded to take her in his arms without eliciting even an iota of a reaction from her.
She sat there in his arms, calm and quiet, for the first time since she could remember, unable to believe that this was possible for her, scared to move least she scare it away.
Unable to quieten that jump of joy that informed her that she wasn’t all that broken after all.
She would jump into it, follow that instinct into the darkness again, against all logic, foolish bravery guiding her as she danced with him and explored that heady sensation of being touched and held without wanting to rip her skin apart.
She would later process how she had given into it, how she was so glad that at least one of her firsts was with her consent, how she was safe, how she was okay and not dissociating, not overwhelmed with terror, how she was cared for in that space.
How she would hate that it was with someone she didn’t love, how it wasn’t a fairy tale, how they wouldn’t end up together because she honestly deserved better.
It would confuse her to no end that this playboy validated her feelings more than her family, more than the person she loved so deeply had, that her sense of physical safety would come from the one person no one would ever think to trust.
The sense of being kept safe would intensify as he protected her from someone harassing her and the memory of that would help to regulate her when triggers would pull her down even months and years later.
The shame of it would intensify as he lashed out when she turned him down, spreading rumours about her that pushed people to reach out and take care of her instead.
She hated, hated, hated how she needed these lessons from other people, that she didn’t have the intelligence or the strength to figure it out herself.
Hated that she had to put herself in harmful situations because they also held her answers.
She didn’t like letting herself get hurt.
She would work on that next.
2022:
She was exhausted.
She had been dealing with the heaviness of the revelation since it had hit her a couple of days ago.
She had been on one downward spiral after she finally sat down to work on her relationship with her family, realising with a dull thud about how her emotions had been ignored and pushed aside her whole life.
Of realising they had tried to mould her into what they wanted, of not wanting the headache of taking care of a difficult child on top of their busy work schedules and family dramas.
The feeling of betrayal of having her people not make her a priority, the shame of having given up her sanity for them only to not have them do the same thing for her weighed her down.
It was a silent scream that seemed to be coming from inside of her, the idea that the reason she struggled with not knowing what she was feeling had stemmed from a refusal to let her feel her feelings growing up.
A sense of madness that came from not having a healthy outlet for her emotions would make outbursts happen, and that would further strengthened their ideas that being emotional was a flaw.
Over the years, she had learnt to not acknowledge her feelings, had shut them down and pretended to be the quiet, calm person that was easier to love.
That however, had meant that she would lose herself, she would lose one of the things that made her who she was, that she would lose her light.
She would lose her feedback from the external world, making it impossible for her to understand what she was feeling or why, unable to articulate or comprehend what she was feeling, unable to understand the intricacies of the situation around her, make it impossible for her to stand her ground or get her point across.
A dull rage had swept through her.
The idea that she had been set up to fail from the start.
How dare they.
She sat with them later, all her emotions, as they came up.
Welcomed them, acknowledged them, sat with them and learnt from them as they came in and out of her.
She learnt that they would always pass, that no feeling was final.
She learnt that they came with important messages, that they, more than any other human being outside of her, would put her first, were concerned about her, were protecting her.
That SHE was their priority.
She learnt to protect them back too.
She learnt to listen to them and trust them.
She learnt to stand her ground and protect herself.
She used her anger to reinforce her boundaries, her grief to heal years of trauma and pain, worked through shame and confusion and fear to push aside who and what was unimportant to her life.
She realised also, the worlds her family had been raised in, about their lack of exposure to new ideas, about the expectations that curated their worlds, about the wounds they themselves had carried through the years.
She felt like she had lost her home, sure.
But she felt more than capable of building her own life herself.
She rebuilt her relationship with herself brick by brick.
This time needing only herself to protect, validate and accept her.
She had made it.
2019:
She had known that it would come back and bite her in the butt.
Had known it since that first conversation.
And again, she had taken the decision to get involved because he made her feel like she had a place to come back to.
He made her feel like her emotions were not too much, showed her how fun cooking and maintaining a home was, had been her sounding board in the midst of the abject madness of her degree and had been the best friend that she knew she could trust.
It turning romantic was something both of them tried to fight off in their own ways, but it was only a matter of months for it to turn to plans for the future, with promises of fighting through difficult discussions and triggers.
She had been so scared getting into it.
Had not wanted her heart ripped out again, hadn’t wanted to have to deal with the dull ache of moving on again.
But as time went by, she began to trust it, trust him when he encouraged her to be independent and free, trust that maybe sometimes, people actually won’t hurt you.
She had been careful and would lower her shields slowly as time went by.
It took another couple of months for it to implode.
He had realised, at some point, that fighting his family wasn’t an option.
It took a couple of months for the goddess he couldn’t believe was his to turn into the source of all the unrest and discomfort he now felt.
Losing his family wasn’t something he would be okay with.
She?
She could be pushed away.
And then began that tug of war.
She had known somewhere deep down that he wouldn’t make that choice to fight, hated how the feeling of home had made her give in and say yes, how she was stuck, once again, in a place with someone who wouldn’t chose her and refused to protect her from their own darkness.
She left eventually recognising that this wasn’t her person going through a rough patch. It was just someone else looking out for themselves.
It had been wonderful, the experience of being deeply loved, it had given her a sense of safe belonging after the longest time and it had healed so much pain she had carried along.
But she couldn’t let herself be hurt again.
She knew that.
She had to recognise that taking the right decision for her meant to trust that her future held more.
That a place that she had to compromise and lose herself to stay in was not the right choice, that all of her life and all of her needs had value.
It was not only about the other person.
Her life was about her.
Her life had value.
She just had to trust that.
2022:
I really can’t do this, she thought to herself as she sat in silence on the phone.
She had tried, she really did, but had found no common ground, no connection, no chemistry, no instinct.
She knew she would eventually say no.
Right down to her bones that this was not what she would be okay with.
But she sat there trying because he was great on paper.
Her father had been quite descriptive about how incredible they were, about how it was perfect; would an August wedding be okay?
And here they were, unable to have a conversation longer than 20 minutes without it ending in silence.
She sat with it, the contrast of wanting to say no for herself and the idea of saying yes to make her family happy.
With the idea of needing to compromise in relationships to make them work, with the messages of oh wow, he seems amazing, to her own impressions of him being a nice enough person, just not one that was inspiring any sort of deep emotions in her.
Was that a strong enough reason to say no?
Maybe she should take a logical decision for once and see what happens?
Do I really want to risk a divorce? She thought faintly as the silence stretched on.
Realising that contemplating the option of divorce even before she had agreed to marry him was a bit much, she proceeded to wrap up her interaction with him.
As she dealt with the aftermath of her refusal, she sat there, grateful for the lessons she had learnt in being enough for herself, in loving herself enough to want what is best for her, regardless of what it looked like to other people.
She was just grateful for all the growth.
She’d rather be happy in her own space than trying to make a less than ideal situation work.
Thank you very much.
2016:
She hadn’t felt enough for a very long time.
She hadn’t felt smart or capable or valued.
She hadn’t been told she was loved, she had not been told she was appreciated.
She was told that her migraines were her fault, that her stress and anxiety made her crazy, that she was weak for going to therapy, that she was broken because she had been abused.
She was told that she was selfish for wanting her abuser to be told to leave, was told that she was inconsiderate of her family’s feelings when she raised hell about not being protected.
She was told to think of her parent’s relationship, of the lives of the cousins that would be devastated, of the heartache that the older family members would go through if they knew.
What about the family?
What would people think?
They’ll pity you, you know. Talk about you behind your back, talk about how broken and difficult to love you are.
How emotional you are is just a reflection of out of control you are.
I am worried about you.
You are broken.
Look, no one wants to marry you.
You are clearly not complete or full after the abuse, you clearly need the stamp of approval from a stranger agreeing to marry you for me to accept that you are okay.
I need proof that you don’t have trouble with intimacy, that you will not have to struggle with triggers, that you will not have a life complicated with migraines and chronic pain, with panic attacks and nightmares, that you will be able to live a life that is not marred with this darkness.
All she ended up hearing was, if you are in pain, if you are suffering, if you do not get out of that darkness, I will not love you.
I cannot love and accept you if you are suffering.
I cannot love you enough to grow up and feel my guilt, shame and fear without taking it out on you.
I cannot help you through this impossible hell because I am scared and do not want to participate.
You handle this on your own.
Meditate, pray to all the Gods, keep quiet, follow rules, protect the family.
Except you, of course.
You don’t count.
You are the problem, don’t you see?
Stop yelling, stop fighting me.
I love you.
You will never understand the love and fear of a mother till you become one.
You are so young, you have hardly experienced any life.
What would you know?
I know what’s best. Stop arguing.
You can’t wear those clothes. You can’t meet your friends.
The world is so unsafe. I am the only one you can trust.
Stop trusting your friends. Stop talking to your therapist.
They just put the worst ideas in your head.
You will not be able to handle it.
You will take the wrong decision.
You will not be able to figure anything out without me.
It had all been so insidious that she had barely noticed it.
Built slowly over the years, the control and manipulation had woven itself into her life without her ever realising.
She had spiralled into the arms of strangers, into dangerous situations, dumping random people with the responsibility of supporting her because she couldn’t let her mother see she was hurting.
She had fought against the panic of figuring out any situation before her, not trusting her capability and intelligence to be enough to get her through.
When she finally saw the extent of it, it took her breath away.
It had encompassed her whole life and had threatened to continue forward if she didn’t do something about it.
There was a sort of dull disbelief at the unfairness of it all.
A refusal to let the child you brought into the world be her own person, a systematic oppression of any skills that could help that little girl be the best version of herself.
The rage built up slowly, growing and growing till she couldn’t sit still with the red hot heat of it.
She drew her boundaries, spoke about moving out, questioned every single comment passed and used that rage to protect herself and her life.
And as that rage found its outlet, compassion showed up.
The most unlikely visitor, but there it was.
Showed her the ways her mother had been denied expression, the ways how she had been raised with no exposure to critical thinking or emotional development or expression herself.
How it wasn’t an excuse, but an explanation nonetheless, that involved a systematic problem outside of the control of someone who didn’t see it.
An explanation that didn’t involve the idea of being hated and resented by her own mother.
She was quite aware that she would have walked away, had it been any non-familial relationship; that there was a small amount of resentment for still choosing to stay.
She would have to wait and see for how the relationship would progress later on, but given that she was now so capable of taking care of herself and that she now had tools to recognise and later work on what she dealt with, she felt more confident about giving it an honest try at least.
After all, they had given her a wonderful childhood otherwise, great food, a roof over her head, vacations with family and friends, a wonderful education, financial support whenever she needed it.
A lot of who she turned out to be was in spite of them.
She knew that clearly enough.
Just that a lot of who she turned out to be was also BECAUSE of them.
And she happened to be quite grateful for that.
She felt like she owed them a chance to figure out a relationship with boundaries that might work out for everyone.
It would definitely be difficult.
But maybe it would be worth a shot.
2022
There is a quote by Naima F that she had grown to love:
“Here’s a tip about growing up:
Be the person your younger self needed you to be.
Childlikeness and all”
She thought back to her life as she stood there watching the sunset by the pier and she was filled with the most fierce sense of love, gratitude, and pride to the past versions of herself.
To the ones that had been lost and scared and alone and had jumped into the thick of it anyway, the ones that had been brave enough to walk into the darkness, to the ones that kept fighting, to the ones that took difficult decisions and protected her, to the ones that loved her so intensely that they did the impossible and got her to a place where she was happy, safe, independent, confident, at peace, and content with herself and her life.
She made a silent promise to continue to do the same in the future, sent herself a pulse of love, light and joy and looked out into the distance as the sky begun to melt into the most beautiful golden sunset.
You’ll be okay, she told herself.
I’ve got your back no matter what.
Look at you go, Starlight.
By Sharika Sriramanan
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