Losing me

On womanhood, ageing, selfhood, and the quiet cost of always trying to be good.

I watched a very colourful Instagram reel of a group of women in some resort, dancing with joy to a popular song.

I am such an introvert. I felt envious for a few seconds. Then I squashed it. However, I was curious to know what one had to give up to belong.

Hey, lest you get judgemental, I am all for women being there for other women.

I have always considered myself a bit of a loner. Gregarious when I want to be, but quiet otherwise. My nose always buried in a book, or headphones listening to an audiobook.

I am a good person, a kind one. I have this exasperatingly tiring trait to do good all the time.

And I do not know how I became that.

I remember, as a young girl, trying to save a squirrel who lay quiet and motionless in my home in Bangalore. I tried to save it. It passed away the next morning, and I quietly buried it in front of my house, tears flowing down my cheeks.

I did not then think in terms of animals or empathy. I do not think I even thought much of the word empathy then. It was just who you were. All the moving parts moving in one direction.

Or when I saw a child cleaning a table in a café where I had coffee, and thinking how wrong and unlawful it felt.

There have been many such instances in the past, but I never really bothered to delve deep. I was always the kind to put others first, not because I wanted to be accepted. I thought that is what regular, decent people did.

That is where it began. Not all at once.

Not in a way that anyone else would notice.

But slowly. Quietly.

However, I have to address the elephant in the room. The need to be nice, to be good. To pretend to be having the best time of your life. The Instagram-hued narrative of a person laughing through life, surrounded by friends, bringing their glasses together in cheers. It makes for great optics, a warm social media story. But this is only a microcosm.

Reality is akin to a multiverse, fluid and vivid. Always non-linear.

And if you are a woman, it gets even more challenging. Complex and layered. Patriarchy, identity, and visibility on a collision course.

We were indoctrinated to be good. To not question.

To be reverential. There was no escaping from it.

And then, as I progressed through life and its many seasons, I saw a shift. Not in a dramatic way, like a snake shedding its skin. But quietly. Powerfully. A need to stay true to your core, even when it feels light-years away from the mainstream.

Relationships in real life are messy, three-dimensional things. They need to be sustained and nourished. In the same breath, one need not diminish oneself to stay relevant.

An unreturned text or a call should not be the excuse to walk away. That’s very superficial. Context matters. The more textured it is, the more unspooling needs to be done. Reciprocity is paramount.

However, the more pliable you are, the more you lose yourself, little by little. It is okay to sometimes be alone. It is more than okay to watch a movie in the theatre all by yourself.

The flip side being you do not have to share your popcorn with anyone.

Because the moment you start enjoying your own company, you become more.

Coming out of a turbulent anxiety episode that lasted for more than a year, I realised I am the gatekeeper of my own mental health. That no one else could do that work for me.

And perhaps that is where the real shift began.

The foundation of any relationship rests on five pillars: empathy, reciprocity, the need for emotional housekeeping, intuition, and the right intent, always. And I will let them win, over and over again.

I distinctly remember, not very long ago, showing my work to an overseas acquaintance, someone I had brought in as a business partner. She circled everything in red. Called it rubbish.

And someone else told me I used too many fancy words, that I was trying too hard to appear polished. I sat with both of those verdicts longer than I should have.

I once mentioned jocularly to a friend that I found someone we know good-looking.

She ghosted me. Not kind.

Then someone said, “I want to age like you. You make ageing seem easy.”

So many isms intersecting at the same time: ageism, sexism, groupism, and the quiet violence of other women’s opinions. The same woman, seen so differently depending on who is looking.

For now, I dare to live as me, a little every day. Curly hair undone, red shoes, and cotton khakis and tees.

And I am happy being just the way I am.

Guarded when I do not feel the need to be understood.

Molecularly Yours,

Sanjana

Curiously Irrepressible

First dreamer. Accidental chemist @ Green Molecule - Clean Confidently