Who were you?
Whenever I came across this quote, I’d always shrug and think that’s not meant for me.
I mean, no one has ever “told me” who I should be. Everything I’ve become is everything I chose, I knew it.
But then I was having this conversation with a friend today about an aspect of my personality that I believed to be true for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been convinced of it, that I might’ve unconsciously started convincing others of it too, even though it might not be true. And when my friend asked me, what made you believe in it in the first place? I realized I didn’t have an answer. I had no tangible reason, and my mind went blank.
Just for a few minutes,
right before it started replaying scenes from the past
that I wasn’t aware I still carried inside.
A scene of someone once giving me “the look”.
A scene of a close friend frowning upon a choice I was very fond of.
A scene from a setting I felt so uncomfortable in but everyone else seemed to naturally love.
A scene where I was always the odd one out.
And I realized, that the world doesn’t have to tell you who you should be, right in your face, with the loudest voice. Instead, it can send you very subtle signs, that leave behind the deepest scars. Scars that slowly push you to let go of what makes you who you are, because it doesn’t fit the implicit definition of who you’re expected to be. Scars that you can’t see clearly on the first look, but the pain they inflict can change the course of your entire life.
It’s true that the world doesn’t always tell you who you should be, but it can still do worse. It can shame you into becoming what you never chose.
It can create outfits that don’t fit normal human beings, yet make you doubt it’s you who doesn’t have the right body for them. It can build curriculums that can’t possibly appeal to every brain out there, and follow through with a grading scale that has you calling yourself stupid all day long. It can so carefully polish lives on social media, that you eventually internalize you’re the only one who has it this hard.
It won’t necessarily tell you anything.
But it can do worse.
It can walk you through it, while you think you got there on your own.
