Hey Little Girl…Part III

Discovering who she was, was an easy task but clearly people in college still had a problem with the person she was. The Woman started noticing that she couldn’t help but get along with people older than her and her peers just as in school continued to be intimidated by her and preferred keeping their distance.

In the last two years of her school life when the girl realized that she was the happiest when she was free to express herself. Express she did in moots, debates, camps, talks held in schools and colleges. As she adapted to the surroundings she knew she would never compromise this freedom of being herself for a group of people whom she would not be working with or seeing after 5 years of college. She knew in her heart that even if she did see them there was no danger of her having to acknowledge their existence. That little boat of being politely civil had long sailed. People in their late teens and early twenties invariably end up spending too much time worrying about being accepted by the clique that they want to be a part of. They forget that they are individuals who don’t necessarily have to fit.

It baffled the woman that people didn’t feel the need to participate in everything. The fear of losing face was more over powering than the “What if I just manage to wing it feeling”. After having watched the Dead Poets Society a million times the woman as a girl had sworn that she will do exactly what she wants and not what others expect of her. Little did she know then that it was a life lesson that she would carry with her for the rest of her life.

EXPERIMENT while you can. CARPE DIEM. Of course she experimented. Who doesn’t? She for one enjoyed steeping out of her comfort zone. The shell was always there. It was invisible and people were not allowed to see the history of why she was the way she was. They were allowed to assume she had been a freak of nature since birth. Stepping out of her zone involved dating a guy she knew she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with but she still dated him because he was persistent. Unfortunately for her being persistent was the only thing that the guy was good at. Things didn’t end well for her or the guy. She was put off of dating and she was sure her mother most of all was pleased with the results.

She always wanted to know how well or rather how much more vocal she would be if she ever got drunk before one of her seminars. You can be sure she did that and no one suspected a thing because she behaved no better when she was sober.

She wanted to know what was the easiest way to get kicked out of college. In spite of being the person she was, she was never short of attendance and teachers who didn’t like her couldn’t do much because she had an excellent academic record. This strangely made her feel like she was missing out on some important life experiences. So she decided to spend an entire semester just representing the college in every fest and travelling out of the state to competitions just so that she would not get the required attendance percentage, so that the principal would finally call her and verbally abuse her like he did 99% of the college junta. As fate would have it her name appeared on the list of “Shortage of attendance list” seeing that in the morning cheered her up so much. During the break she told her senior friends that she finally made the list. Unfortunately when they went to see the list her name had been scratched off. Apparently you don’t qualify the list if you represent the college and win because then your efforts have been fruitful and is proof that you have learnt something.

After this incident she knew she had to do something more extreme. She decided to smoke on campus. That ought to draw some attention. She did and got caught but was not reported because of her academic record!

She knew it was futile and gave up her attempts at trying to let people know that she was only trying to see what she can and can’t get away with. Her classmates thought she was a stuck up beach. She was secretly pleased about that. They also called her Miss Nofeelings because she had no boyfriend and also because of the way she had treated that one guy that she dated.

So much was happening in her life and the only person who got a full share of the incidents was her brother. Yup. She told him about her exploits and misadventures. He laughed at most of it. Gave her some good advice but most importantly he initiated her into the drink fest. He was the guy who told her she could try anything she wanted and that he would take her wherever she wanted to go try her experiments with drinking. He introduced her to more books and music. Even though they’d fought in their teens her brother was the first person to know if something was wrong with her. He was always her confidant. Peace reigned on both of them. Time went by now they are grown ups and realize that school was only a part of learning how wonderful their parents were to never have compared them. To have given them the security and freedom of pursuing their individual interests and most importantly letting them learn to respect one another given everything that happened. They are both glad that they retained their individuality J

P.S: Having a sibling means you get a free punching bag. The kind that is stable and will take the blows and after the tempest hear you out and may be give you a hug :P