I think I have mentioned this somewhere previously, but one of the things that are very hard for a person, is to be surrounded by other people who do not credit the effort they make in the things they do. Be it family, friends in school, collage or your workplace, when your true hard work is dismissed in an instant or is simply refused to be acknowledged, it truly can hurt a person.

I think I have also mentioned it, the fact that every day; I wake up to people who see nothing but the worst in me. This is such an overwhelming contrast. Because at home, I am useless, worthless and a waste of space. But the moment I step out, everyone becomes fascinated.

At collage, my lecturers love me. We joke about things and I have a good time. I had recently developed an interest on a person who goes by ‘Cupcake’ as I had nicknamed him – and he particularly used the words “Extra-ordinary” and “One of a kind” – which made me cringe and want to jump out of a window.

Every time I state my opinion; be it at collage or work, anyone I would have the conversation with would be in awe and say something along the side “See, I’ve never thought of it that way…”; which honestly make me feel as if I had helped a person see things differently. I don’t know if they agree with me or not, but hardly that matters. The more you open your eyes, the sturdier your sense of judgment becomes. Opening that door to anyone makes my words and effort worth the while. 

Just recently I was called in for an interview for an Advertising Firm and I was hired the same evening with the Director calling me and saying “So, we decided to hire you, and you can come to work from tomorrow, get to know everyone and learn your way around our group.” My immediate boss, Head of Digital Marketing Management, kept telling me how happy she was to have found my CV, and how I had zero competition from the rest of the applicants. Apparently she liked me so much – she pushed the MD to hire me.

I’ve been working at the place for two weeks now, (it’s a relatively small team of people) but everyone there likes me and constantly is impressed by my work. Today, two advertisements (one English and one Sinhala) I designed with the Head of Offline Marketing went on the newspaper and I was over the moon!
And so were they! He brought the two newspapers to me with a big smile and said “Look! It’s your work!” and my immediate boss was so happy she kept asking me to cut it out and to keep it pasted on my workstation. I texted my friends and was congratulated.

So for once, I bring home something I had created, and I show it to my mother; and guess how she reacts…

“Hmph.” She grunts, crossing her arms. “So you did this?”
I nod. I’m holding my phone for her to see and she shakes her head as if I could do nothing more to embarrass her any further. But she doesn’t say anything. So I walk away, like I always do. I come home from anywhere and I walk away from the actual people inside it.
What I live in, is called a “House.” A home is built by the people inside it, and inside this house, we had no people. Admittedly I was not a part of it either. But one barely has a choice.
As I quietly make my way to my room, she huffs, again.

“You know your father regrets many things in his life.” She announces. Both of my sisters are in the living room, watching TV. But the noise of the commercials thin out to the air. You can only hear her talk. I know that my sisters are listening too.

“He doesn’t show it, but he regrets that you are girls.” She says.
“I was told too, to make more children when you were born. People knew that girls are no good for a family. All they can do is taint the name of generations.”
“Never have I known a son born into a family embarrassing his family.”
“You’ll understand what you have done to us with time. You’ll have to pay for this, someday in your life child.”

And I huff too. I walk out on her. I don’t think I must waste my effort to educate or enlighten a woman who had brought nothing but suffocation to every day I had lived my whole life from a day I remember feeling sadness; about men who had tainted the human kind – about serial killers, rapists, molesters, failures in life… why must I take her out of her thick skull? I have no obligation to.
So I walk out on her.

I’ve come to terms with how I will never be appreciated in this household and I honestly try not to hurt myself over it. But this was a new reason. One I haven’t heard before. They regret the fact that I was born a woman? That every step I make in life, every bad choice, every mistake, every wrong that will happen to me, would taint their name, and I will have to pay for it?
I – being the sufferer, has to pay for it?

Why do they – being reasons for my depression, anxiety, self-degradation, and at their worst – had made me contemplate my own death, still expect me to live up to their name? Fulfill silly and unimportant tasks such as “Complexion” or “Image” for their sake?

Why must I repay for what they had done to me? Why must I suffer when someone calls me Nice, Intelligent, Smart, Creative, because every day I wake up to them calling me emotionless, stupid, and dumb? Why should I suffer when someone wants me to state my opinion because I had come to develop so little confidence in myself that it hurts me when I must ask myself five time ‘if it is appropriate?’ before I answer them?

Why must all my days end with such suffocation and disappointment?
For how long will I keep walking back to this hell hole and call it my home? When will I leave? And when I do, how will I know for sure that I am not guilty, or if I will have to pay for suffering as I had my whole life?

Today had been a terrible day, but also a very great day. With an advertisement I had designed myself going on paper, today marks officially as the day I started my Graphic designing career.
It also marks as the start of a new year, new hopes: of wanting a home, a place to comfort me – and I think, fairly concludes 2016 as a very emotionally and materially enlightening year for me.

Reading my blog posts from January, I see that I had no clue of what to do with my life at this year’s beginning. From February onwards, when I started my internships at the bank, my life started to gain momentum and direction. The people I met and talked to at the bank made my thin horizons wider and boosted me with confidence.
Confidently I start my Collage life to learn art, and here I am, at the end of the year, with a full-time job and as a designated Graphic Designer, and it makes me awfully grateful.

How did your year pass you by?
What are your new year resolutions?