Somewhere Between Lazy and Enough

Who am I?

Confusion seems to be at the forefront of my feelings these days? Who the hell am I and what exactly am I doing?

An identity crisis is an understatement for what I’m experiencing at the moment, I quite literally exist out of my mind lately. If the people closest to me seem to see a different side to   me other than one I thought I was and presented, does that version of me become the real one? I feel myself slipping from the realm of sanity sometimes because I am losing touch of what is real and what is not. 

Getting to a point in life where you’re trying to branch out and do your own thing, make your own decisions and become your own person is proving to be much more difficult than I thought it would be. Everyone has their own expectations of what you should become, no one really asks what you want or envision for yourself, just endless streams of advice and nudges and pushes. If you told me even 3 years ago if I would be as redundant and unaccomplished as I am now, I might have punched you in the gut, unfortunately planning your life very meticulously doesn’t always mean it would work out. So here I am starting from scratch at 24. Who would’ve thought?

Growing up it was a fact that everyone knew I liked to sleep in. My sister would be awake maybe by 7, if my parents let me I would sleep in till almost 10. This earned me the title of the “lazy” child, something that bothered me so very deeply. Realistically I don’t think anyone knew that it would be such a core issue in my life, including myself. To avoid this hanging cloud over my head I threw myself into proving I was not in fact lazy and I would try to immerse myself into things like cooking and domestic work, constantly trying to show my worth through different gestures and actions. These things were the only way I felt like I was contributing anything worth SOMETHING to my home. Fast forward several years later, I’ve moved back home and now I’m more often than not, single handedly expected to do most of everything in my home. And I’M STILL BEING SEEN AS LAZY. I throw myself into catering for the people I love and it’s still not worth even a dime lol. 

“It’s your duty to your parents”, “It’s what you should be doing”, “You must make everyone happy”. That’s all I hear these days and to the best of my knowledge I am trying. I’m just 24 and I already feel like a housewife and mother of several years. Taking care of physical needs, being an emotional sounding board, navigating a very scary part of my life and somehow I still am not giving enough. Tiredness, resentment, fear, anxiety, depression.. They’ve all become my never ending reality. I guess it is my “duty” in some twisted way, I just wish that someone would recognise the effort I put in. Now I’m “unkind” and “angry” and “mean” and “bitter” and all that jazz because I am trying to set boundaries for myself and no longer have the strength to pretend like these things aren’t weighing on me.

One thing you genuinely must have is people that see you for you. They remind you of who you are and bring you back to earth. I was at my sister’s birthday party with my cousins and a couple of people and I remember telling them I was going to bed and my cousin said “That’s true Rukky was always a very lazy girl”, I didn’t think anything of it really, same old. My friend however whipped around and said to her “no that doesn’t check out cause Rukky is the most hardworking girl I know.” And then she went on telling her that I had gone to the market and made all the food and did all the decor and I was just tired and needed a break. I wish I could tell you that I didn’t go into the bathroom and cry. I was so overwhelmed with the feeling of being seen and understood, it was very unexpected. My birthday this year my friends took turns telling me and showing me they understood how much effort I had put into being there for them. I truly never had experienced something like that and it really shifted something in my brain. Here I was asking myself if I truly was as inconsiderate and unmotivated as the people closest to me made it seem, meanwhile my friends simply saw me. The part of me that no one else had ever said they saw out loud. All this to say, God used that experience to tell me not to harden my heart to a kind nature. Did I take the lesson and run with it? No. But I am slowly and surely uncovering it as I go on. 

I ask myself what I’ve learned writing this and the truth is I still don’t know who I am. Maybe I’m kind and unkind, or maybe I’m hardworking and lazy. Maybe one day I’ll stop seeking validation so heavily. And maybe one day I will learn to live with the fact that my family members are who they are. They’re never going to see or get to know me till I’m probably long gone. I hope that I learn to accept things for what they are and move on, not learning how to do that has been my worst regret. My inability to take things at face value causes me to break my own heart over and over again.  I must begin to live my life outside of duty, fear, anxiety and sadness. For almost 3 years I have allowed my dreams and lifelong goals to be ruined by expectations and approval, this is me deciding that I will get back to being the motivated and ambitious woman I used to be. Maybe the version of me I’ve been trying to become has always been there underneath all the noise, the guilt, the labels.

Who am I? I still don’t have a complete answer. But maybe I don’t need one just yet.What I do know is that I’m someone who feels deeply, tries endlessly, and still believes she’s allowed to start again. Maybe that’s enough for today.