Aham Brahmasmi

Who am I?

I remember most of my day and night. Even when my eyes close there are thoughts. A hundred garbled ones overlapping.

Hot breakfast...8am call...which hair-ties match her skirt... does the little one have clean socks... why won't hubby shave even if its WFH...are we out of kpods...what will MIL say if I don't fast for navratri... why didn't mom tell me about my brother's...what to cook for sunday dinner... will the guest comment about the curtains...

I hunt for sleep and solace and wake up empty handed after 7 or so hours. The balance sheet of my past day shows no gains. Except a few pounds on the scale a week.

Life has never been more mundane. Locked inside. Afraid of our own shadows. Trying to beat the odds by making the fittest indoor body. Or giving no sh** and hogging on to doritoes at 2pm when you want to strangle the boss who kept a video call.

I belong to the colorless part of the spectrum. I know I am incompatible with 99% of the world around me. I have no absolute view or necessity  to prove my point right. I have no instagram life.

But I survive on my own. People free, clutter free. Life was still seemingly perfect.

Then one fine day. My perfect world shatters. I sit there strapped to a chair convincing my crying child, mommy will be home by evening while EMS hauls me out of the house... I know I lied.

With all that is left in me I take a look around my dismal home and my family. Close my eyes to peeping neighbors, too ashamed of the ambulance standing outside my door. No one will water my fall yellow chrysanthemums. They will wilt. Perhaps me too.

Sitting here after a 5 day long fight for survival I am thinking... what has been my life? If I did not survive this, was their a purpose to life? Was I true to myself?

I lived as my parents wanted. Tried to be the perfect child. Did not take sides, did not make demands. Did not choose my favorite profession because... what will the world say?

Did not chose love nor ignored it. But never gave it my all. Because... what will the world say.

Lived like an afterthought to impress people who were always going to treat me like that... an afterthought.

Let go of friends because I had changed. But did I change off my own will? I changed as society deemed fit. To fit in with a crowd I wasn't really fond of in the first place.

Forgot to give myself goals, give myself breaks which were plain... for myself. Not to make anyone else happy.

Forgot to respect myself as a human. As a divine creation of this universe. I know I am unique. I know I am so many things but why was I always 30% of myself and 70% b***$h**.

Who decides what is right or wrong? What is desirable in a woman? Whose moral compass is actually due north?

Are these the steroids shot inside my body? Has allopathy reached this high? But maybe I need to maintain this as well.

Live as I deem right.

So that whenever I face death again, I will be a bit less scared. I will have died as me and not the may opinions about me.

I will have loved myself the most and completely and died without heartache or expectations.

I will have pushed my own boundaries and tried whatever I wanted in this world without peeping over anyone's shoulder for a chance at the view.

Its high time I found the answer to who am I. I might be miniscule, a nuisance, absolutely wrong. But it will  be me.