I wish..

                         I wish

                 I had my birthday ten days ago. Along with memories, a thought kept me awake ( read pestered ) since then. It all started with the regular celebrations. Birthday bumps, an earful from my mother. Well, people say that's not a part of regular, and it happens to only me, because am extra stubborn on my birthday. I can't help being so, if you make me sit like a kid and take a trillion pictures, to be sent later to friends and family. That's a whole another rant, so let's go back to what I was saying. Yea, birthday bumps, an earful from my mother, cakes and candles, and making a wish. Boy, making a wish has always been my favorite part of birthday. I wished and wished for 24 years. Well, a few came true. Okay, most of them cam true. But few didn't. And I always kept wishing for them to happen, birthday or not. Not impossible ones like meeting George Clooney or becoming the next Robin Cook. But the most basic wishes like, me becoming beautiful, successful and a boy. *wink*

               If I were a boy, I don't have to break any rules to get things done, my way.
              If I were a boy, I can laugh,out loud, and not have disgusted looks thrown my way.

             If I were a boy, I can dress my choice and not commented upon.
            If I were a boy, my education and career would matter more than getting me married off.

             If I were beautiful, I don't have to listen to millions of ways to make my skin fair.
            If I were beautiful, I don't have to hear random relatives, joke about how unruly are, me and my hair.

           If I were beautiful, I don't have to listen to 'it would take a fool to marry you, the way you look now'
            If I were beautiful, I don't have to cringe every time I look in the mirror, for I don't see me, I see the "me" everyone made me believe I am.

If not beautiful, or a boy, I desperately wished I was successful. For no one would atleast say something to your face if you were successful. Well that's how 'young me' thought and wished.

To be fair, I do get things done my way, most of the times. But, yes, I have to break a few rules (rules, that seem ridiculous to me. May be  they seem ridiculous too, to the people who impose them, when they were young enough to think, but now that they are old enough, they get the license to be obnoxious.)

I do laugh out loud, I dress like a boy or whatever way I want to. Frankly, I don't think it's wrong to wear what you like. Unless it's a bikini to a place where people go to worship, or a T-shirt that's say, "its an awesome party" to a funeral. If some one dresses up, don't call them slutty. Let people wear what they want, stop controlling. Rapes don't happen because some one dresses provocatively. They happen because you teach your kids, to dress that way, is provocative and slutty.

And, as a nation we are obsessed with being "fair" and "lovely". Whats wrong with my melanin, anyways? It does protect me from skin cancer, you know? Who decides that looking fair is looking lovely? Curly hair, straight hair, or my frizzy grizzly hair. What's the right way to look, who decides? Too thin, too fat. Not curvy enough? What's thin enough? Who are you to say? As long as a person is healthy enough, let them be. Its already hard growing up and making a mark in this world. Don't toughen it up further by introducing all these complexes into young minds. Here comes the classic argument, 'We never discriminated so in the case of our kids'. Am sorry to break this to you, but yes you did. In one way or other. May be in a back handed compliment. May be casually, addressing some random stranger by their color, body image. Kids are impressionable. They pick things up and they don't let go that easily. Not just kids, I know countless people who suffer everyday, because of the body image issues. They suffer more so because of the people closer to them.

So, the wish I was speaking of, that i have to make this year. I dint know what to wish for anymore. For I felt none of them would matter as long as I let go of these three wishes. That I have to be a boy or beautiful or successful for people to stop hurting me and to listen to what I say.

May be 'young me' would have enjoyed dwelling in the misery. But this year, I finally made a wish to be 'me' unapologetically and uniquely. To be myself, not caring about rules. Neither bowing before them nor bending them. I will continue laughing out loud, dressing as I wish, making my choices matter, not the choices society tries to impose on me.
To be myself, to be able to look into mirror and look at the 'real me' and to have the courage to say 'you look beautiful' to myself. To not run after success and to not wallow in self pity. To be the 'me' I want to.. Not the 'I have to' version.

Life didn't change automatically the minute I made that wish. It still feels hard, its a journey in progress to be 'me'. But it feels like a heavy weight is lifted off my chest. And it feels great to step aside for a while and to appreciate myself, for who I am. And to try and not to get affected by others judgment. To be me and to love myself the way I am, is the best gift I ever received.

In conjunction to the above discussed article, here is some thing that caught my eye.
http://mom.me/kids/teen/28615-one-thing-never-say-your-daughter/?utm_campaign=zergnet_907982&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=zergnet.com