Identity

The primary question of our whole lives somewhere always boils down to, “Who am I?” and of late I find myself introspecting a lot.

“Who am I?”

Am I that employee who strives each day to learn something new, to excel in my career?

Am I that daughter who tries each day to bring a smile to her parents’ faces?

Am I that friend who attempts to lend a shoulder and be there?

Am I that girl who is struggling between feeling too much and feeling nothing at all?

Maybe, I am none of the above or maybe I am all of the above. Either way, I am something.

The whole fabric of my being is based on the connections I have made, the things I have let go of, and the things I chose to stick with. I believe that emotions drive you in every sphere of life. I need to feel connected to my work, my peers, my family, my friends, and most importantly myself to continue to function in this world. I have felt it all — a wide spectrum of excruciating positive and negative emotions and what I have realized is I need the entire spectrum to feel alive. What is life without intensity anyway?

A little girl smiles at me and I find my nth day of happiness in that. A friend doesn’t pick my call and a teeny tiny portion of my heart breaks. I look at all the carefree people, who seem to not have a single worry in the whole wide world and I am filled with awe. For such a long span of time in my life, I wanted to become like one of them — a nonchalant soul, an unmoved being, a stoic!

But, I have these epiphanies from time to time that changes my worldview. It's like the universe sends messages in small air packets and they touch my face tenderly and hit my soul acutely. The most recent one was — I am not one of them. I cannot be one of them. I don’t want to be one of them. The beauty of my soul lies in the very fact that it feels deeply and it is fruitless and unnecessary to try to change who I am meant to be.

I have been told many times that I have sad eyes and I remember putting chilled green tea bags for 10 minutes every day to change what my eyes convey. I have been told to take it easy and I remember googling “how to take it easy”. I have been told I am underweight and I remember drinking 2 glasses of banana milkshake each day for a while. I have been told if I don’t change who I am, I will never find love and I remember about a decade of my life, trying to change myself, even when I didn’t know who I was.

I might not be in a place to answer “who I am” or “who I want to be” even now, but I choose to believe I have come quite close. I am not someone who will change the essence of my soul. I don’t want to be what I have been told to be. I want to accept every little invisible thread that my creator had loomed deep into me, someday. I want to accept the fact that I cannot / will not feel in moderation. I want to shed tears when I am hurt and I want to laugh my heart out when I am happy. I do not want to not cry because good days are ahead. I do not want to not laugh because things may someday go wrong.

So, there it is — my identity, my definition of self, the core of my existence.

PS : If I give up on myself, how can I expect someone else to not give up on me?