Stories we tell ourselves at night

I think they want me to be some sort of god.

As I watch cars from miles away speed through highways, I wonder if that’s what they mean when they tell me to be a million things at once. I go through an endless list of what-ifs and to-be’s, separate from my daily life obligations. Finish the script, scrub the bathroom floor, be pretty.

“I guess you did alright during that meeting, but you shouldn’t have worn that dress,” Alyana told me just a few hours ago. I had prepared for weeks trying to make sense of the numbers. I guess I should have worn a different outfit.

Time passes as usual, and when I close the door to shut the day behind, I pull out another set of things to do to prepare for tomorrow’s tirade. Iron my nicest dress, get published again, preside over a meeting. Be what people want me to be.

But I haven’t felt like myself in such a long time.

I wiggle my toes and touch that curious corner between my ear and cheek, but I feel nothing. I see my fingers brush my hair, but the gesture is entirely foreign. Are these someone else’s hands? Perhaps, but I’m not entirely sure. Logic dictates that seeing them connected to my arms means that they are mine, but I remain uncertain.

Miranda told me just last week that I had to lose weight. “It’s unbecoming of people our age. You need a smaller waist, and then a tiny face. You might be good at what you do, but how will you get noticed by potential lovers?”

I think I’m comfortable with how I look. I remember this little mole on the back of my hand, filling with color as each year passes, but nothing about it feels like it belongs to me. I recognize where the line from standing too long in the sun ends, the gentle curve of my hips, and a chunk of my flesh removed from childhood—I almost screamed my head off.

I know these stumpy nails, this patch of hair on my toe that always stubbornly grows back, and the fleeting peace that comes with my body I believe to be a temple. And yet I feel utterly disconnected as if I’m watching wide eyes from the other side of the window as my body moves to survive.

Must I worry about how my face and waist look daily?

“You’re so nice it’s so fake! Women shouldn’t be that nice, you need to be strong yet soft if you know what I mean. You’ll never get anywhere for being nice. But don’t cross anyone, just tiptoe around them.” It’s so utterly confusing.

I frantically search for any reflective surface, desperate to get a good look at my entirety, to feel some semblance of belonging. I search, and I look, and I remember every little memory that comes with every inch of me, but no feeling remains. Is there a way to feel safer with the people around me? I slip to the floor. Then, I find my entire being slipping away.

There is only a hollow of the woman that once was, before plunging in head first into this thing we call life. I see my dreams scattered around the room, and I remember how it felt like finally hitting the water. There was only cold and pain; I suppose that’s when I began letting go.

“I think you could have done that better. I know I would have. It’s a shame; I feel like it’s because you’re too shy. That, or you’re probably not as good as they think you are. That’s okay, maybe you can try better next time!”

Is that true? I have been trying so many “next times” ago.

The reality of living as a woman has caught up, and I never bothered to spare it a glance. Discarded pens of a variety of colors, torn pages of notebooks, and neglected books I thought would prepare me for what was out there. I see dry paint covering the floor as pieces of paper I taped on the walls fall one by one.

Who am I supposed to be?

I looked and stared, determined to find one hint of feeling, one caress of yesterday’s hope. I stood there until my knees started shaking. There was nothing, not a glint in my eyes. The woman in the mirror mocked me.

I stare at the walls and the papers that still cover them. Things I’ve done well, things I’ve earned, things I am, and things I will be. Papers containing five hundred more interesting things about me, five hundred things they ignore.

Perhaps it’s my callowness to blame, believing that I can be seen as more than just a pretty dress, a part of my body, and the amount of attraction I can command. I never learned the language of confidence, so much so that my declamations of vindictive grace and strength fell deaf to my own ears. I may have convinced others around me, but I never have extended the same comeliness to myself.

I have been reveling in silence since then. In lieu of self-belief, I made myself small. I never learned to bask in the space I should have been occupying and instead insisted on staying in a corner, half-hidden and half-seen—a splitting image of an admirable woman. Slightly in the shadows to dull the luminance, with touches of light to be looked upon whenever convenient.

Perhaps I trusted too much in the innate goodness in people they keep insisting exists. To me, I have made a name, I have been kind, I have tried to look nice. And yet, to them, I have no name, I am not kind, and I never look nice. My womanhood is public property, subject to public discontentment permeating through people’s minds. And at the end of the day, a woman like me needs to be someone people want them to be. And that means being a million different things at once, so they must want me to become some sort of god.

And then I look down and wonder—shouldn’t they be gods, too?

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Nicole Tengco, 25, is a writer from Manila.