Remember that aunty you meet every few years at family festivities, who says “you’ve grown so much, you were this small when I last saw you” or comments on the weight you have lost or gained. I know it’s none of her business, but I understand her surprise. It’s hard to imagine that baby R, now a talkative big girl was once just a squeaky toy.
We know, aunty & I, that there are are more polite ways to address this change, but often in surprise we forget. I only recently turned into this cheek-pully “you were this ?? small” aunty when I meet the ‘asocial’ being that had been secretly growing in me. I knew she was there. I had met her once while trying to avoid someone hurtful. She must have come over often after that. I mustn’t have noticed. Very often in coping with the life we cultivate mechanisms that are hard to point out in blood & flesh.
Only now did I notice, that I had been avoiding calls from friends & relatives for the fear they will ask me to move away from home, tell me to not be mentally ill, think badly of my parents for how they cope with schizophrenia, and tell me. It must have been years but I noticed her only 3 months ago when someone I love told me he couldn’t count on me anymore. When I looked around, I realized I had lost accountability with people who wanted to count on me.
I have decided to turn around & do better. I have already been on more video calls in a week than I was on in the last 3 years. Baby R called me every day when I was in Kochi counting down the days till she could see me in flesh. One day she tried to feed me peanuts through the camera. I spoke to S for 2 hours on call, for the first time after college, after which he sent me a message saying he loves me. Attya called to show me her haircut, so I also showed her mine & told her this was the first nice thing I did for my hair since Alopecia. These moments fill my little heart with so much joy that I went ahead & made myself a communication calendar. It reminds me to talk to someone I love every day. Ambitious, I know, & often tiring, but when I see aunty next & if she must comment, I don’t want to be “you were exactly the same when I last saw you (warts and all)”