Ice Cube Melting

Mohammed’s comment hit me the way an ice pick hits a cube of ice.

At first, I don’t think I knew how much it resonated with me, how much it affected and shifted my insides, my thoughts. My “feelings”. God, how many feelings do I have to have anyway?

I’ve never resented being an emotional person, someone who can and has felt things a little too deeply, loved a little too much. I accepted it. I’m not bad at accepting things the way others are.

But some things ought not to be accepted.

“Things like that can ruin it all for you,” he said. And he’s right. I know he is, or I wouldn’t have done what I’ve done and done and done. Some piece of me knows it well and operates on this very idea.

I bought a skirt today. It should be noted that I did not, until this afternoon, own a single skirt that I have worn outside of my house. I own two full length skirts in which I occasionally do housework. This one though, is a genuine Banana Republic, black pencil professional skirt. And I will wear it in public.

I have my share of body issues, but my problem with skirts runs even deeper than the fact that my husband hated them. Probably still hates them. But what is more concerning to me is how much of my life I’ve spent hiding myself from people. “We talked about nothing, which is more than I wanted you to know.” I was a terminally shy child, and assumed I’d grown out of that. I hadn’t. I’d just accepted it.

Despite everything I’ve lived with, I can say I’ve nothing to be so shy about.

I relayed today to my ex that some students had approached me about advising the Indian Students Association. They think I know something about India, about Indians, about students. I joked with them, “Three boyfriends and a handful of Bollywood films don’t make me an expert on India.” I thought it was funny. I promised to help them find a professor who would advise them. An Indian professor. I shared this story with my ex.

“It amazes me how much you share with people, especially students,” he says to me. I turn my eyes away in shame. But in a moment, that shame is gone. Is there shame in me telling them, or having lived that way? I find no shame in either. My past shaped me, I made those choices, and I have only a handful of regrets.

“I hate it when you say things like that,” I say to him under my breath. A year ago, a comment like that would never have managed to find its way through my myriad of insecurities, even if it had managed to self-formulate.

“Well, I hate it when you do it. I guess that’s why we’re at the point we’re at,” he said.

But that’s not the reason. How could I have married someone who not only discards the experiences that made me who I am, but the choices I made? After all, I chose. Me. When you love someone, you find a way to see why they make the choices they do. You love those choices, if you can. If there is a way, you love those things, too. If you can’t love them because of where those choices came from then the least you can do is respect the circumstances that made them possible. You don’t have to like them, you don’t have to accept them. But if you can’t respect them for what they are and why they exist, you’ve no right to the person those choices shaped and created and influenced. You just don’t.