I feel a little lost. Suddenly and this time not secretly. This little insight into me I have shared with my family. This is open knowledge. The awareness of which is insignificant and yet creeps up on my anxiety. My anxiety is my innermost demon that bunks on the little stability I crave. Each hand
Sometimes, very rarely, a day opens up new opportunities. You take the first walk in a long time, have a delicious biryani, tread a four kilometre path, sip some time with your family basking in the sun and retain your phone battery to 80 percent feeling proud you only checked it so frequently today. Just like this, your anxiety melts in the everyday, it thaws its grips from your arms and shoulders. The day feels light.
And right then something (read SOMEONE) triggers your anxiety. You know, now, from here, a sense of vertigo will immediately befall. A spiral.
But hold on, there’s something new I learnt today. I was doom scrolling YT when this video by UnJaded Jade offered me something I had not considered in a longgg time. At a point in the video, she asks, and I want you to pause for a while and think, “what if today was the last day of my life?’
I detest my relatives behaviour. If you are from India, thankfully, you’ll understand my displeasure. I hate them mollycoddling their way into stalking my future, my whereabouts, my life. I find its disruptive, their judgements about me and my choices. It takes away my agency over my life. If anything, I simply don’t like being talked about. What's more? whatever that they learn about me gets shared so easily with others. I hate to get recognised in group. I hate you talking about me to your sons. All your judgements about me leave me short, always. I’m sick of you following my life. Please, kuch aur kar lo yar zindagi mein. Aaah! Judgements make me sick.
All these apprehensions including what they would do with the knowledge received and their judgemental stare is keeping my anxiety tipping. And honestly they are taking too much of my time. That’s when this idea by UnJaded Jade of thought exercise, as she calls it, set me off thinking differently.
What they are doing is wrong. Its not a matter of contestation. I will contest and challenge their thoughts, radically, in subtler ways. But will I allow their idea of me to stop me from exercising my own self in my present life? And the answer is NOOOOO. I’m sure they are going to talk behind me. Share news with everyone they meet. Judge me the next time. Counter my confidence. Drive me mad. And its going to break me. But, I want to challenge their idea of me. I want to challenge the sense of security they gain from accessing people’s private matters. I want to make peace with myself. And open up all the possibilities of all that we can be without the numbing judgement of your very own relatives.
Peace In, Peace Out.
Thankyou to my warm and beautiful friend and this rare relationship that allows to stray my thoughts, acknowledge existing ones and welcome newer insights. Thankyou for these WA conversations. I’m so grateful for all that this person is.
