01. Writer
–
Emma Suzanne
02. Theme
–
Resentment
03. MUSIC INSPIRATION
–
RJD2:
Seven Light Years (Instrumental)
04. WRITING
–
The world
We are all equal.
“Don’t be a victim”, he told her. “You are not different. It’s not part of your identity. Your identity is a personality, not some hardship. Your identity is your choice.”
She heard these words. In English. It was more difficult for her to understand compared to her native tongue, but she understood the meaning. She felt shame.
A choice, she pondered, and her mind drifted back to a summer in her childhood, before choices began. The sound of cicadas roared from the forests surrounding the rice farms. The smell of mosquito coils registered the season in her mind, and that was her only world then. This was before she would enter “the world”. Back then, she could search for pill bugs in the back garden, wander through bamboo groves, play on the steps of the small shrine. Then, she simply felt what she felt. In her mind, that was who she was. Her identity was what she had felt - what came to her naturally. She had let it all happen that way. She simply saw the world, and she had let other souls see her back. Judgement had no necessity, but then “the world” came to meet her and tell her otherwise.
“Your identity is your choice.” His words rang in her ears again. When did choices become so rigid? Moisture pooled in her tear ducts. His explanation seemed to make sense enough logically. If she chooses to hang onto that feeling, to embrace any part of it, it is her choice. That much is true. Yet, it will hurt her. Voluntarily, she thought, confused. The logic did not falter. She does have a choice; she has a way out. Therefore, all responsibility falls completely on her.
That moment - the one where she felt shame – the brief second when she allowed someone to tell her who she is or isn’t – that moment never actually stuck. For good or for bad, though, she had listened. Damn it, she had listened. And, in some way, she even wanted to believe it, to be empowered by it (empowered?).
It changed her. Well, no, her heart couldn’t quite detach from herself, but facing shame was not an option either. She decided to pretend. She was clever enough to pass the tests, and then careful enough to pass as one of them. She styled her hair just so; wore fitted suits to work. five-centimeter heels, no less, no more. She always spoke their language. She wouldn’t let them believe she had ever known another language.
So she was equal. She was one of them. Well, she could fool anyone into thinking so.
After she got home though, she closed the door and opened the closet; she changed her clothes. She could breathe this way. For a while, this made her just okay. She was okay but lonely. Then, however, she learned there were others, other pretenders.
She went to them. They gathered in dark spaces after most people went to bed. They opened up their souls and spoke their condemned language. They wore familiar costumes. They let themselves be the minority, even the minority within the minority. They kissed each other. A place where being different was ok.
In these shadows, she found some joy. She found someone to love, and one who could love her real self. Somehow, this captured that girl on the shrine steps playing with pill bugs. She knew the remnants of her identity could be boarded up in this relationship and remain somewhat alive.
“You are not different.” She still heard, as the day broke. She heard it from her friends, even. From their spouses and parents. From her colleagues. Go with the flow of everyone. Assimilate. She worried that the cracks were exposing her. Have they noticed? Why do they assume? She worked harder to hide it. She separated her worlds.
She guarded her private spaces. Her only joys. She would never let them know. Even though she saw others talk openly about their attachments and joys - the sanctioned ones. Even though she sometimes forgot that she was any different. Her life seemed to have become just as steady and familiar as the model life. But no, she thought. To do the same as them would expose her. She would become an identity. It was better to keep the label hidden. She would keep it to herself. She would keep all of it from “the world”.
And every day, for leverage, she crossed over into it, “the world”. She pondered again the idea of having a membership to it. Yes. She thought. I’m not different. I’m just as equal as every other. This is a community, and membership comes at a price. Being different is not an identity. It’s just a side hobby I can manage in the shadows. That is all it is, which is keeping me living, just a personal hobby that no one needs to know about. Differences don’t exist. We just merely have personal lives. That’s it.
So then life pushed on, heavy with irony, as she went through every next step, every natural phase of the world. “I’m not different”, she thought, when she marked ‘single’ on her tax returns. “Not different,” every time she used an initial for her name on a resume. “Not different,” when she slipped her passport into her pocket for a jog in the neighborhood.
“Not different” as she read the reviews and comments of her work,
as she didn’t bother correcting the way they referred to her.
“It’s not my identity,” she told herself, every time she let others assume - incorrectly - what she went home to. “It’s not about my personal life,” she would divert. That doesn’t set her apart. We humans are all the same. We are equal and no one treats us differently.
“It’s nobody’s business,” she decided.
But would we really be so surprised
if she ever felt
Resentment?