Who Am I?
Often I stumbled on this question.
And more since my last birthday. And I don’t know how to answer this question.
Every year I think about it around my birthday.
It’s kind of becoming a ritual I guess.
My answers are, at best, grasping at straws.
A little of this, a little of that.
Nothing substantial.
Nothing that seems to really mean anything.
I suppose it’s human nature to ask this question — and to expect to be able to answer it with a sense of meaning.
Though I have always struggled to accomplish this.
Who am I? Hell if I know.
Oh, I’m a writer.
I am hesitate to tell I am an aspiring writer. Because I haven’t seen the success yet.
In 2023, one of my goal is to write and pursue hobbies more often.
I’m an artist.
I knew that from an early age.
My mom is a painter, an avid reader. So it came naturally to me.
I was fairly good at drawing while growing up.
And in later years, I came to love creating arts in many form or shape.
In 2022, I end up created 18 pieces. Okay, that’s something, right?
I’m a woman.
What that means… I am still struggling to understand — beyond the gender stereotypes bestowed upon me by my culture.
Beyond physical gender, I don’t know if I ever be able to fit into the social norms set for women.
I feel like a woman on the inside but I’m still not sure what that really means.
I’m Indian.
Can we skip this one? Just for now?
It’s not that I don’t have anything to say about that or that I’m too scared to face that subject or that I’m hiding behind stereotypes people usually have about Indians.
Yeah, I have an Indian accent and I love curries.
But I am more than my Indian-ness if I am allow to say it.
And that I’m still struggling to understand that identity and what it means within the context of the world around me.
I’m getting aged.
This is the ultimate truth- we all are aging everyday.
I don’t know what that one means, either.
I still feel 16 on the inside — uncertain, afraid, fairly sure I don’t know anything about this world, but trying to find delight in it, nonetheless.
And experimenting ways to the adulthood and not sure when I will fully become an adult.
I’m a daughter.
Though that’s a term fraught with a past filled with emotional landmines.
I love my parents, but I have struggled terribly in my relationships with both of them, and still don’t always find peace there.
I tried, I tried hard.
As Collen Hoover says: “We don't get to choose our parents, and parents don't get to choose their children. But we do get to choose how hard we're willing to work in order to make the best of what we're given.” So this is it.
I’m a sister.
It comes with guilt and sorrow being an elder sibling.
Not sure if I can ever the role model a sister should.
I can’t pave the path when I am trying too hard to break the glass ceilings, finding my ways in this complicated world.
I’m a friend.
I genuinely believe, I’m mostly good with that, though I often don’t feel like I’m a generous enough friend.
I’m so damn good at being a loner and enjoy my own company so much that I could easily go months without talking to my friends and would happily just pick up where we left off.
I have to constantly remind myself to reach out to them and make sure they feel that I’m there for them.
So, Who am I?
I am hopeful.
I am resilient
I am brave.
I like that. That feels right.
That feels like it covers everything important.
That’s all for today.
Hope you enjoy reading today’s edition in Curiosity Tuesday Newsletter.
Share this newsletter with your friends and anybody you feel would enjoy it.
See you next week.
Love,
Ankita
📘Read some more personal essay here:
Embracing Being An Immigrant After 5 Years And How It Happened
This Is What Happens After 180 Days of Yogalates (Yoga + Pilates)