I know, you must be thinking, "why is she posting an essay on wattpad?"
Well, it's because wattpad doesn't exist and you guys aren't real people
I actually don't have an answer, enjoy.
The first stories I heard of my mother circled self-pity. A younger version of me would've called that pathetic. A younger version of me would say it's a self-centered go-to, but brown girls learn a little too much in their teenage years.
My mom's story isn't like others'. She was the perfect example of richness, but not wealth; my grandfather's business broke down at a young age, and her family fell into becoming the lower-class. No money was saved because the wrong people were responsible for saving it, so she learned what a hard life was at a young age.
Young. I think that's a word I keep saying here, and it makes the story of generational trauma even more tragic. Everything happens when they're young, everything breaks too early.
My grandmother went into depression, so my mother became the woman of the family at 17. Her life was gone, at that point, a statement so grand yet so common for women. It could leave at any second -- men could ruin our lives with an opinion. We've grown aware of this.
So with her new responsibility, men became her only responsibility. Raise her younger brothers, feed the people that were left. In India, they stayed with an extended family, but women are expected to be in the kitchen (India loves the British, in a sense, because they'll always keep their gender roles, and Hindus will graciously blame it on Muslims, just what the British wanted).
After all those years, she even continued to help her brothers after my birth. I remember them staying in our house for free, studying and moving out to live in the world on their own. Then they never called again. Never looked back. Because to men, that was what she was: a staircase, a stepping stone, shoulders to balance their unwashed feet on.
I will of course never forgive them for that. In fact, one day, I hope they read this and feel so much shame that they pay off my tuition.
I learned many things about my mother growing up -- everyone does, but daughters are taught to survive their mothers, and like a movie, to survive your enemy, you need a plan.
Except there's an obstacle. Because one day you learn she isn't your enemy, and then you break down in the middle of your bedroom. Your carpet feels disgusting and your face feels itchy and you realize too much in too little time.
But that's for later. Let's talk about what I learned.
My mother becomes silent when she's mad. Is that an insane thing to say? Absolutely not. I'm sure many mothers do this, no matter the race, but finding out why will probably be your (referring to you, reader) most tragic lesson.
Dramatic. I wanted to use the word beautiful for this, but I'm not sure you guys would understand that I mean bountiful, or that I mean quick.
Regardless. The word Dramatic is a beautiful weapon. It slices at your opponent, splits their battle into two: now they have to prove a point, but they also have to prove their sanity.
My father loves using this word on the women of the house. I hear it the most, second most would be on my mother, third on my sister. It depends on your loudness, how much you're willing to be heard: the more you want to exist, the more of a burden you are. Your birth is a rebellion and your existence is a gun firing at the sky over and over and over: you are simply too much.
I embraced that part of myself like a non-feminine, non-lovely, selfish trait. I'm loud, dramatic, moo-phat (mouth ripper). It made me simultaneously hate liking myself and glued my battle back together. My reputation was no longer something I had to worry for, so dramatic wasn't a word that would actually do anything.
(I hate to admit that I love being selfish, but I do. I want something to myself, sometimes I feel guilty, sometimes I don't, I don't know what makes a difference, but just know me writing this and having a random tiktok with 7 thousand followers is me being selfish, here, without having to connect it to me, myself. Maybe that's my way of not admitting to myself that I'm, for once, doing something for me. Now you may wonder why I wear a mask online. I'm wondering with you.)
I realized late that this was going to be as harmful as actually taking the word in. I didn't know I wouldn't be normal until I moved, and suddenly I felt like a human in eighth grade with human expectations.
Avoidance. That's the true star here. Block everything out like a hurt ex, and feel the blocking get back at you, but I've never heard of someone talking about blocking everything from such a young age.
As avoidance became a part of me, silence became a part of my mother. She was losing the battle of wits, dramatic becoming the word that shattered her argument, so she turned to silent anger.
Like I said before: the birth of a girl is rebellious. Similarly, so is the silent treatment. The silent treatment is unforgiving, it goes beyond an oppressor's rules because it's not even an action, it's an inaction.
When I see my mother fall silent I think of the times I ripped myself from my femininity because my mother taught me to not be like other girls. The times I ripped myself from it further when white girls wouldn't involve me. The times I stopped speaking in class because my fourth grade teacher picked out the kids with darker skin and yelled at them for so, so long, while the white girls got smiles and cute teacher-student friendships. I learned that the world wasn't for me, and with the way I stopped myself from having emotions to survive being a girl, I took it all a step further. A step too far.
My mother didn't get to think of who she wanted to be. She ended up a teacher, but she speaks abt how she wanted to become a computer scientist. I don't think this is true, I think she wanted money and she wanted the right to study for it, because I know she never enjoyed code.
But the choice was taken away from her, because she is a girl. And now she forces that choice on me, and I can't sleep at night thinking of what I'm selling my life to, but I don't know what I want to do, either, so I go with it, because thinking of myself is something a girl has never been taught.
We stand hovered over our families, not in control but also in control -- our lives are to keep everyone happy, because happy meant calm and calm meant normal and normal meant you ended up in a good place.
We need everything to function, and if you call us dramatic, we can't have the control needed to keep you happy.
So my mother and I, too alike, fall silent when we've tried everything. In silence, you can't call me a bitch, you can't call me dramatic, you can't call me a pain, because I'm doing nothing and you can't prove anything from a still face and a voiceless mouth. Everyone may wish us to stop talking, but when we do, you panic, because losing a useful woman is the only thing that makes the patriarchy care for her.
I hope this didn't come out as a rant. I have no idea if anyone read this far. Maybe it'll be a single essay I wrote on October 16th, just hitting 1 A.M., it'll be a blip in the world and never seen again, so maybe this is just me talking to myself here. My retainers hurt, my eyes aren't sleepy. Goodnight.
- Maki Writes
