She Was A Girl

“She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important.” ~Marilyn Monroe.

Much to my mother’s disapproval, I’ve been on a Marilyn-Monroe-inspiration-spree recently. About being a woman, being beautiful, smiling, laughing and some of the more flippant things she said that just sound cool. I like them. Being a girl with (yes, be surprised if you know me) crippling self-esteem and self-image issues, I admire tremendously any woman who is comfortable with her body and sexuality, with her looks, with her femininity and womanliness- any woman who is as comfortable in her skin as I’m not. Quotes like Monroe’s give me the strength to get through the day with a facade of confidence and security and freedom from self-doubt. Yes, darlings, the lack of self-consciousness that characterise Malavika is just that: a facade.

And why? Had I been able to answer that five years ago, I would not be writing this today. I would not dread the hours spent with peers outside the four walls of my room. I would not dread judgement from my own parents despite knowing in my very bones that it’s impossible.

And again I ask myself: why? I’m not ashamed of my attributes: I’m smart, sarcastic, witty, friendly, funny and a nice person to be around because I have to be. I’m not pretty, I’m not beautiful, I’m not sexy. My hair doesn’t fall perfect and straight; my stomach juts out, not in; my skin has monthly eruptions; my teeth aren’t like Snaggletooth (Sophie Kinsella? I forget) but they aren’t the best either. In short, I look like Miss Bingley’s description of Elizabeth- you know, the one where she provokes Darcy into calling Eliza gorgeous.

I was a tomboy for so long that by the time I remembered that I am a girl, I’d forgotten how to be one. Sometimes I think the rest of the world had forgotten what I really am too. I came to makeup as an extension of dance, or as something to fool around with and play ‘disguise’ with (Five Find-Outers, I blame you). I came to heels because I realised that I was the only girl in my seventh grade class who’d never worn a pair. I came to clothes when my male friend had to explain peplum to me- with a diagram. Before, I’d thought it was a dress material.

It suddenly comes to me (as it does every morning when I give myself those li’l pep talks) that all this sounds so shallow and nothing at all to do with the woman I am. Something I once read, like, ‘just because I’m not a lady doesn’t mean I’m not a woman’, that was pretty cool. That was true, too. That is true.

It’s just so hard to remember when I stare into the mirror at night.

Far More Than Our Abilities

It’s been a month, perhaps, and the feeling has dulled somewhat, like a previously-salted wound that’s finally scabbed over. But poke and prod, the way I’m doing right now, and salted blood bubbles up, trickles over and burns red and briny trails down skin.

When did I start dancing? Twelve, thirteen years ago? When did it become this important? When did I stop dancing for others, when did it become more than class and timings and marks, when did it become mine, mine, and practice and give-and-take and rehearsals?

When did it become subject to choice? When did the rest of my life get up and demand one of us, you have to choose one!

And I feel like this.

Like a little girl in a rushing train with window bars too big for her, like a little girl staring at beautiful things that she would have liked. Like a little girl whose choices have been made for her.
But I am the young woman who has made her choices, and “not-a-dancer” is who she is.