I took myself on a solo trip this year. Took cabs alone, walked streets alone, went to the beach, and made portraits of myself, alone. I was often worried while on the cabs/buses/trains, happy on beaches, and over-whelmed around people. This year, I read 11 good books. 3 of them changed my life. I will never read, write, or be the same. The books changed the voice of thoughts in my head. They changed their narration, and they changed the narrative of my life. But, the biggest thing I did for myself this year was to take myself to a movie.
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I am too sensitive, mummy tells me. ‘Too’ she says carefully, replacing the polite ‘very’ that could have taken its place. She takes a moment longer to enounce it, implying excess, like excess deserves to be addressed. She is right. I am too (not very) sensitive. After I read ‘Incredibly Loud Extremely Close,’ I cried more than I had cried when my grandfather died. He died, he did not pass away. His dying was fine, somehow, Oliver’s father’s hurt my chest. I cried all night. My eyes, like zombies’, stared blankly in class the next day. I had, temporarily, lost the will to live. I cried at the end of ‘Gravity’, I cried out of gratitude, and sudden relief. I cried a different kind of sadness when I watched ‘Dead Poet’s Society.’
Don’t cry over fictitious characters she would tell me earlier. That was before she realized that nothing is fiction. Then she realized I was them, at war, looking for love, hurting in painting classes, on bar stools, in trains to the hills, so she says now “I am sorry it hurts”. That little part, at the center of my chest, goes with me everywhere. She insists. I took her with me to the war movie. We cried, lamented, regretted, and felt guilt at being born too late. I held her hand at the hard parts and rejoiced with her at the happy ones. She changed a lot after that. She stands up for herself more often now. Takes charge. She still pains, pines, and puts up a show, but is harder to bully now. She doesn’t quiver at being called weak, and doesn’t try to change. She stands, with strength for herself, her pain, and her sensitivity. She even adores it.