Measured Steps: The Glass Globe

Saturday, January 2, 2010

The Glass Globe

I suddenly realise that I am alone. Not literally. But I have become conscious of the fact that I sometimes walk a few steps away from the other people in my life. Standing outside and analysing a tiny glass globe of people who happen to be my dear family and friends. Figuring out what everyone is really about and where I stand in the hullabaloo. It’s a lonely feeling.

As a kid, I was always an extension of my family. No matter how much I would have wanted to break free and be an individual at that point, there was no escaping the fact that my life revolved around the family boundaries. As kids, our thinking is moulded by what we see and hear, and we are conditioned to behave a certain way. As a teenager, we might have argued and rebelled hard enough to create our own persona, even if it was a façade. Yet the strings remain, more for a sense of security and a kind of default identity.

As an adult also, especially in Indian societies, we are always attached to family. Yet there are those who gravitate towards standing outside the glass globe. Some like to look away and live their life the way they want. And some look in and make their lives miserable wishing, wanting, hoping, regretting, rebelling, antagonising and sometimes yielding. I belong to the latter.

As most teenagers would, I have given my parents their share of angst and regretted it later. But generally I think I’ve done okay and been a good girl. At what point in life did I realise that I was free to have my own opinions? Those that did not conform to what I was taught. When did I decide that it was okay to not always agree with the people around me even if it meant standing on a lonely opinionated island? I don’t know. But what I do know is that having that opinion, arguing my point of reason, caring enough about something to fight it out is what makes me ME. And this means I have to sometimes walk alone, look at the glass globe and wonder if differences put cracks in relationships.