Samar Pant

A popular belief is that we come into this world a blank slate, ready to be molded and shaped into individuals, or allowed to discover who we are as we grow older. Much as I would like to believe that all babies are born a blank canvas, we know that this is not the case. I won’t even bother going into the inequities of socio-economic factors, gender, and race. Let’s leave that to the social justice warriors. You and I both know that life is not fair. Yet what I am concerned about is the more insidious less intangible social markers of others’ expectations of us.

 

We are born already marked with the expectations of our parents, based on their hopes and dreams for us, their cultural attitudes and pre-conceived notions on what we will be like and how they will be as parents. We are born already marked with society’s expectations for us, given the socioeconomic status of the family we are born into, the country in which we are born, and as I mentioned – race and gender. We are born already marked with the expectations of our institutions – the education system, healthcare system and the workforce – on our capabilities based on all of the above.

 

Born into these neatly folded cardboard boxes of who we are, what we will be like, and what we are capable of, is it any wonder that most of us spend all our lives trying to break out of this box and define who we are for ourselves? Don’t get me wrong. There is more than one box. There is the box that our teachers put us in – intelligent but not motivated, has books at home an indicator of parental attitudes towards education, tries hard but not capable of self-discipline. There is the box that our peers put us in – class clown, hopeless romantic, quirky but can be annoying at times. There is the box that our parents put us in – capable of achieving anything we want, destined to become Prime Minister she just has to apply herself, dutiful daughter, sister, and future wife who will make beautiful babies for me to play with.

 

These are a lot of boxes we are expected to fit into by a whole range of people. How is one human able to stretch themselves so thin they fit into so many boxes?! I imagine myself to be made of that gummy moldable toy ‘Slime’ that kids love. Like Slime I can be stretched, I can be squished, I can be broken into multiple pieces and fit into many boxes. And to some extent, this is natural. As humans we are constantly judging and assessing others to reframe our view of their world, our own position in a social hierarchy that cements our opinion of ourselves. Part of this involves defining who and what other people are, and our default way of doing that is to put people into boxes. But what about when the boxes other people have put you in, begin to define who you are and the boxes that were once easy ways for them to categorise and classify you – exhibit A. Anushka Britto – singer, writer, auditor, quirky character, dutiful ‘good girl’, and future Nobel prize winner – don’t line up with who you believe you are in the very core of your being.

 

I feel like I have spent most of my adult life so far trying to break out of the boxes that I have spent my whole childhood comfortably nestled in, perhaps for fear of what was outside the box, and lack of self-awareness of what was in me that didn’t quite fit in that box. It can be hard – incredibly hard – to challenge the boxes that people we love place us in and say “Actually, that isn’t me at all.”

 

I recently saw a post on Facebook where a woman mentioned a conversation with a guy she had gone on a date with who said that he hoped he would have a daughter before a son because girls are better at looking after their younger siblings. It raises the question – what expectations do we have of a child even before they are born? What expectations do we have of women, when they are still children, still unborn – to serve others? I am constantly being put into boxes by friends, family, colleagues, strangers – men who walk past me on the street and tell me to smile, peers who think I can’t be a feminist and want to be an involved mother at the same time, family who assume that I will get married and have children and that this is a natural life path for me. Yet each group of people who put me in boxes, cannot conceive of the idea that I can be both, or all, or none of them. That I can be a woman – and not smile, that I can be a daughter – and not want a daughter, that I can be a feminist – and be a stay at home mother. It’s not that I want all these things or am all these things but I would like the option to be them without hurting the people I love.

 

My journey in reclaiming my authenticity has been at times subtle and strategic, at times a blundering elephant in a china shop. For the first time in my life this year, I am single, not a student, and I have a decent full time job. That is three things I have never had all at the same time before and it’s taken me 29 years to get there. It’s interesting what you discover about yourself outside of the confines of a relationship, and stressed broke student life, when you have the money to spend on yourself. It’s a golden window of time when the only obligations I have are to myself and my time is mine to decide how and with whom I would like to spend it (within the restrictions of a pesky virus called Covid-19). Turns out the things I like and the boxes I fit into are more or less the same as the ones I sat in before – but I am constantly discovering new ones, and loving them. As my worlds converge, the walls between them have disappeared and Anushka the curious, Anushka the friend, Anushka the writer, Anushka the daughter, Anushka the lover, Anushka the auditor, Anushka the babywhisper-catburglar-jigsaw doer- comedyactor – are all the same person and I no longer feel the need to justify one version of myself to the other.

 

I have stepped on toes, I have broken hearts, I have personally created the worry lines on my parents’ foreheads, painting them on like a giant paintbrush over the Tasman Sea. Yet I make no apologies for any of these things. Because what would the point of your life be, if you spend the first 50 years living within the boxes that others have put you in, before finally realizing that you are nearing the end of your life and you choose to break free? If there was ever a time to reclaim your authenticity in who you are and how you live your life – it is now.