Dairy

As I grew up, I was always told that I am overly matured for my age. You are calm, ambitious and an all rounder, I was told. I accepted all of it with a smile. After all, I had to live up to my reputation. I never disliked the ready made image of me which was handed down to me. It was perfect, calm and beautiful. The problem was, nobody ever guessed how I reached the point where I could talk about gravest of the issues which made everyone either giggle or shut up. I did.

I understood very well at a very young age that I was not as safe as a child would like to believe. My parents were not superheroes who could protect me from every obstacle life threw at me. Actually, my family could be the very first one I would have to face as I blossomed into teenage.

My first shock came when I realised that living under one roof does not mean that everyone loves each other. It is often driven by the need to survive and veiled hatred was all around me. I spent a major chunk of my childhood coming to terms with the fact that I cannot love everyone. Loving one person of the family was like betrayal to the other one. 

Once my priorities were decided, there were constant jabs by my "conscience" because I excluded certain people because I simply could not understand their stand. One day, I did. And then came the second major turning point. I would have loved to live in that ambiguity now as the truth was much much darker than I ever expected. To see my own morals being breached in my place of residence was intolerable.

I developed an individualistic style of life to cover up the insecurities which the past events had created for me. But as it turned out, it was not  very good way to attract friends. I was successful, obedient and always praised. I worked hard and got great results. That was my way of taking control of my life. But then things went out of hand again. I fell in love in my early teenage and never estimated that the change it brought in me was somewhat irreversible.

I made friends eventually as I developed the side of me which could talk without a break. But this time, I did not leave any space for another disappointment. I hung around people who I knew were jealous, who wanted me to fall like some people of my family did. I proved all of them wrong every single time.

Ultimately, I centered my life around my ambitions and very few people, 2 from my family and one or two from my friend circle. I had grown strong to protect myself and nobody messed with me. They knew I could destroy them. I studied people carefully and categorized them, handling different groups with a different strategy. Some were to be kept completely off my range, others could be allowed to to talk to me at certain points of time and others were to be led into believing that they knew me well. 

This was the point of time when the early teenage love came back with full force. I fought desperately but finally lost to my desires which I had refused to acknowledge. My own emotions made me pay for every single moment I had denied their presence.

By now, I had grown into a woman wary of relationships, extremely protective of her brother and mother and overly ambitious. I planned my future day and night, laying down the ways I was to break free of the compulsions I faced for being a girl all this time. I tried to keep together things at home for the sake of maintaining the exterior we had created.

And then came a blow which actually made me go back alter every single detail of my plan. I found out that in the list of the people who did not want me to rise, along with my father, relatives, grandparents and friends was my own brother.

He had grown exactly into the type of men I hate- he had a taste for harassing women. And today I realized that it was because of me. He detested me when I won prizes. He hated it when I cared for him. He hated every second of the moments I cherished with him.

I always knew that I would have to step out of his life. Its just that I didn't expect it to be so soon.