I Love You, But You Taught Me Wrong

You are kindness personified. The type of kindness that isn’t temperamental, but flows from a place of deep-set conviction. You think you were placed on this Earth to care for, to guide, and to serve the ones you love. I can see it in the smile you muster with all your strength after a hard day’s work. I can hear it in your voice, masking your disappointment when I haven’t called for a while, too busy in my own world. But you quickly forget your disappointment, don’t you? Our happiness is more important than yours. As long as we are healthy and fine, you’re fine. I look around me, at others caught in the force of the tide, desperately feeling for something to hold on to, and I’ve had my rock all along. I know that you are my stepping-stone to safer shores. And like the stone, you carry me without expecting anything in return. That’s just how stones are.

But I am mad at you. I have been for the longest time, and I feel awful for it. The bitterness I carry keeps me from you. I am the unruly child throwing fits at you, never verbalized, but stewing inside my gut. Sometimes I open my mouth to speak and only acid escapes, scarring you. You flinch at my cold gestures, and I’m embarrassed with myself. Is there even a way to communicate my frustration without hurting you? Can I put it gently that I think you’ve taught me wrong?

You see, words have always been important to me, and I swallowed yours whole and without question. Perhaps more than my siblings, I was completely enamored with you. I listened intently to your conversations with family, with neighbors, with your own mother. You once remarked that I was a cheeky little thing, pretending not to understand what was overheard, but I was not to be underestimated.

“She is a rude, opinionated girl”
“She gave herself to him”

“It’s best not to get used to living on your own”

“She’s studied and traveled so much that no man can satisfy her”

“An education is important because men these days want an educated girl”

I was absorbed by these narratives and their implied meanings, simply because they were yours. I came to believe, as a child, that my virtue as a woman would lie in what I chose not to do. I would not be too loud, too ambitious, too independent. I would not “gift” my body to any man out of wedlock – a single act that would threaten my “honor” and negate all my merits. I would not break the rules, because then, what man could love me? Tainted and just too much to handle, I would not deserve that love anyway.

Simple notions like these, stated so matter-of-factly, are easy for a child to digest and internalize. They became a part of me, so much so that I forgot where they originated from, but never doubted their validity. I blushed when older family friends complimented me on my “delicateness and femininity” (Also read: the ability to mute oneself, so that others may shine). And though you’d spent every afternoon tirelessly correcting my homework, I understood that my academic achievements – and later, my professional achievements –while worthy of praise, ought not to be given too much weight. At the end of the day, a woman’s greatest achievement would be a well-kept home and close-knit family. A diploma could be an additional source of pride for her, hung on the wall next to the family portraits, or if need be, it could serve to provide an extra source of income. My priorities should remain clear though, marriage and family before career. And needless to say, until that sacred knot of marriage is tied, I should not even contemplate acting on my desires – even though it seemed perfectly natural to do so, and even though men were excused for it. I felt a resulting disconnect with my young body, as though it were not mine. Rather, It belonged to my future husband, who would expect it to be intact upon delivery - no broken pieces.

I’m unsure when exactly being called “delicate” or “honorable” started to sound more like an insult than a compliment, or when your insistence that I learn to cook began to annoy me, I just know that those ideas no longer fit me at some point, and I was itching to shed them. I fought you in direct and indirect ways. It probably seemed silly to you, some typical adolescent rebellion, but it was more than that. There’s nothing actually wrong with being a housewife, or having a gentle, understated nature, or wanting to wait until marriage – I know that now. But because these qualities and preferences were presented as the right ones, the only ones to have, my instinct was to fight them with all my might.

I am still fighting, one battle at a time, against these too-tight notions. You are not free, nor can you be set free, because you still believe them to be true. And I am not free as long as I am acting out of anger and rebellion rather than calm conviction. But I will get there. I need to be alone for a while, to unlearn that which does not bring me happiness and to understand what I need to reach it. After all, we are here momentarily and then we are gone. There’s not nearly enough time to spend in subservience or even in anger. I wish that you could see that because you deserve better too, but I love you anyway.