8:30 AM, I sit and suffocate in my child home. I wonder what my mother was like when she was my age, sixteen and eccentric about the world. In an alternative fantasy, I saw her smiling in photographs with strangers I never knew, no children by her side, and the happiest she’d ever been. 

As I saw it, my mother’s life had been gambled away before she had the luxury of an opinon. My father held her down, or so I liked to think, like shackles strapped to her ankles. She was buoyant by nature; she wanted to see the world, confide in her friends, and cement her life into books. Instead, she was tethered to my father’s one-bedroom apartment, where newspapers lay splattered on the coffee table and teased a child about a life she’d never live. 

My mother had never been in the picture. After I was born, my father had scowled at a my mother’s ineptitude in providing him a son. Ironically for him, the two had divorced and decided to leave my fate in his hands. Every conversation with my father about my mother would begin with a crude remark that said the only thing my mother had ever done for me was give birth to me, as if it was a disservice on her end. The rest would flow into a river of blames and slurs about a woman child me never got the privilege of knowing. 

I’d like the believe there were flickers of guilt that lived throughout our house. Like my mother, I wasn’t entitled to friends or the outside world so I spent my life memorizing the lifeless reality within four walls. Amongst the things shoved between sofa cracks and headboards were tattered photographs, frayed medical textbooks, and chipped drawings. 

The photographs reflected the faces of people I only recognized by blood. My mother was smiling alongside her sister, dancing at parties and creating makeshift fashion shows with borrowed jewlery. The textbooks carried carvings of a set of initials: HK. Flowers, hearts, and characters surrounded the words and I could only imagine the look on her face as she sat on our dining room table, distracted and hopeful. The last, and possibly my favorite, were sketches of hand prints. The pages were crumpled, but smelled strong of eucalyptus and cloves. The prints were garnished in intricate patterns created by an already hardened paste. The decorative lines were dry leaves that had been created into a red paste called mehndi, eventually being used to temporarily stain the skin. 

In my culture, the paste is a symbolism of prosperity in health and marriage. The patterns, colour, and history of the plant were deeply rooted in thousand-year stories. My ancestors believed that the paste was a reflection of the love between two people, a darker stain would be indicative of a more prosperous marriage. My mother’s creations were cracked and prison-like brick hues. 

I spent my childhood memorizing every piece of those drawings. I would secretly trace the chips into perfect copies when my father left for work. Later, I would shove them back under the sofa I called my bed and anticipate our next encounter. 

My father never let my mother see me, nor did I ever get the opportunity to do so. I wanted to believe that, despite to my father’s wishes, I was just like her. I used the small pieces I had of her to construct a woman in mind that I tried to find closure in. I caught myself using the

same words etched into her books, parting my hair like her sixteen year old portraits, and painted my hands with pictures regardless of the occasion. 

I’m still trying to find solace in a woman I never met and heal from a family that never wanted me. Above all, I’m terrified of making my mother a villain in my story as my father did. The San Francisco therapist keeps telling me I shouldn’t be terrified because she was, like I, a victim. While I absently pretend to agree with her, I felt I was pretending to call my creation family despite her early disloyalty to me.

I chose to do a personal narrative for my Triton Transfer Storytelling submission. It was difficult choosing a single story that would be able to emulate the different identities that I have created for myself or which one I thought would be the most impactful to whoever may give me the privilege of having it read. I had hundreds of ideas that screamed how resilient or strong I was, or at least I wanted to believe I was. In the end, I chose to focus on my mother. To an extent, you could say that this submission was me simply trying to find comfort in a story I haven’t been able to get myself to both say and write into words. 

To me, resilience has always been synonymous with perseverance. That latter was an adjective I had heard a lot, especially when I entered college. Whoever gave me the time to hear my story–whether it be a psychiatrist, teacher, student, or a piece of paper–would tell me how much I’ve preserved or how much I’ve overcome. I chose to quietly accept the compliment than really compliment myself on it because I don’t think you will ever be able to comprehend your own adversity when you’ve been born into fight-or-flight mode. 

My parents had divorced when I was really young. My family tells me that no one was particularly happy at my arrival because I wasn’t a girl. I came from a very traditional, religious, and conservative family in Northern India. I was born in a small village and after my mother was healthy enough to leave the hospital, I was left with our extended relatives while my father took my mother to the States. My mother was about 17 when she had given birth to me, 3 months after she was married off, and I would argue my birth was a catalyst that had made her reality tenfold worse. 

Traditionally, my culture has a extensive history of priding itself on arranged marriages. This means that brides are matched with husbands by the family and the bride never gets to meet her partner until she stands at the aisle. My family tells me my mother was a political science major in India, she didn’t particularly enjoy school but she loved medicine. She was eccentric, loud-mouthed, and stood her ground. My mother was surrounded by friends and dreamt of travelling the world. Once her marriage was finalized, my father had dragged her to the States and shackled her down into a housewife. She wasn’t allowed to have friends, her location was tracked, money wasn’t accessible to her, and she essentially became a prisoner in solitude. Fortunately for her, my maternal grandparents had found out about what was happening after my father had lied to the police and had her handcuffed to instill fear. She was taken back to her family and filed for a divorce. 

When I was brought to the States a while later, my father chose to keep me. Simiarily to my mother, my actions were watched and conversing with others outside of our home was strictly outside the rules. As a child, I had no choice but to create my own entertainment. I found a stack of books and photographs stashed her the headboard of our guest bedroom one day and discovered it was my mother’s things. My father never granted her permission to take them back so she had no choice but to flee without them. Amongst the things, there were photographs throughout her teen years, NCLEX textbooks, and paintings she had done. I believed they were her source of escapism before I filled her shoes.

I have been battling with her existence and my reality for as long as I could remember. I was subjected to the same treatment as my mother and grew up fearful of making friends, had a hard time around approaching males in fear I would be berated, and cautious of my surroundings. I would look at the pavement and run home immediately to and from school. This was complete and blind obedience on my end. It wasn’t until a story of how I was raped by a extended family member came out during my senior year of high school that I was taken out of my home by Child Protective Services. 

Resilience, by definition, is the outcome of successfully adapting to one’s environment and challenges but I don’t think I was able to successfully do anything. I simply lived through it and used it as a catalyst to keep going. Yes, I became flexible to my environment, but that came at a cost of my childhood and years of healing. As a transfer student who was able to get to UCSD and on a path to carve my own story, I’m really grateful to be exist here.