You Have Got It All Wrong -

Thank you Blogadda

You have got it all wrong ....

 Statutory warning: Keep away if you hate narcissism 

Some discussions on my blog comment had me thinking and evaluating myself. Going through my illness and laying on the hospital I had nothing much to do, so I got my brain working.

“Why do you bother about what others say?” you may ask.  Hmmm… Yeah! I am one of those people who think about crap before flushing it off.  Anyway, I noticed an odd trend when people say they respect me or applaud me. It is all for the wrong reason. Most of them respect me and applaud me for surviving cancer, when they should be applauding my doctor for having done a great job on me. Did I have a choice and fight for someone else? Did I fight for a noble cause? Did I fight for world peace? No. I fought cancer and survived because I was greedy for life, I wanted to be with my kids. I couldn't leave them behind and die. There, I was totally selfish and greedy, but people respect and applaud me for being a survivor for 15 years now. 

 Not many may know that I feel a sense of guilt at times for having survived, when I have lost my dear ones to the monster. Like the question, ‘why me?’ I often do ask, ‘why not me?’ I did what anyone would do, maybe I did it in a bit of style by choosing the right response, at a young age of 29, with two small kids; but I did what anyone with cancer would do. Fight the monster to save my life and be with my loved ones. Why should somebody applaud me for that? You say the attitude and will power etc etc but that is not a big deal.

Coming to Farheena, she is my only daughter. I am loving person towards kids, so naturally I love her. I love to talk about her, tell people how special needs people are really special in many ways. She has touched my life in the most unique way, given me a special vision to look at the world. There is nothing special when I love her. She is lovable kid and most of the people who have been touched by her, love her. There is nothing you have to respect or applaud me for being a good Mom. There are only good moms in this world, if they are not good then they are not moms.

I don’t say you have to disrespect me people. That is not my horrible intention at all. I want you to stand up and applaud me as loud as possible for my real great achievements. Actually what follows in this blog could end up as height of self-admiration of a woman for herself, but Ahem! Here I start my real deserving list of achievements.

Though I am living in a village, where you cannot tell one woman from other, when they belong to my community, I have made a mark for myself. Yes, I do walk around here totally covered with my black robe, where you see only my eyes. I was commonly addressed as ‘Bibi’ when I visited offices, hospitals or any public place. The darkness is strong enough to overwhelm people and swallow them whole as a python.  I haven’t allowed the shadow of my cloak to overshadow me, I have found light and shone my colors through it. It may have swallowed many people like me, but I have escaped it clutches and I have discovered the real me. I am not a Bibi anymore for the people.  It is hard, it is dangerous and it takes a lot to hurt your own people, especially when you love them. It is tough to question what everyone around you believes in. I had the courage to do it. I am brave enough to stand up and say what I really am. Not until you are there will you know, how it feels to be an ugly duckling among the chickens.

I have never allowed anyone to treat my daughter differently or without respect. I have been strong and fought to get her the love and respect she deserves. No one dares to fool around or mess with her. Bringing out this kind of behavior from people who were not used to it is something I have achieved.

 From a small depleted house, sitting in my small room, where my tall brother cannot stretch himself, I reach out to the world. I have fallen down only to get up with more vehemence. When everything was fading away in my life, I picked up the leftovers and started to prepare a new dish to relish. I reached up and caught the rainbow of my dream – pursuing my education again at the age of 44.

It is not easy at my age to sit down like a school kid, prepare notes and study for the exams. What with children, house work and my health issues distracting me. But I did. I studied hard enough to score first class passing marks in my first two years of graduation, and, the jewel in the crown was my scoring 92% marks in Psychology. It is something when you do that with your chemo brain. My brain is not what it used to be in school days, where I could memorize pages within hours.

I have learned everything about internet and computers, surrounded by the walls of my room. All the help I got, was an instruction on how to switch on a computer. Today, I am kind of computer repair person. I can almost fix my computer all by myself.

My blog is something I feel proud about again. It is not easy to share your problems, miseries with the world. Some say, pouring my heart out on the blog can take away my pain. Only those who haven’t lost a breast, been worried about the future of their child, lost dear ones to cancer or suffered as me can say that. Easing pain is not that easy. Even if I write thousand of blogs and millions will read it, the problems and pain will stay. When I was supposed to be quite and walk in shadows, I dared to go ahead and share a part of me with the whole world. I received a lot of flak for posting my personal details, pictures and other information on my blog, but I decided to live my life my own way. It is not tough when you are independent financially and healthy person. For me, being a rebel meant a great risk. I don’t have a job that could support me, neither am I highly educated, I fear recurrence which looms on my head all the time and I am responsible for my daughter. These restrictions were pulling me strongly towards the gutter where I could lie, rot and be lost without trace after a few years. I have decided to jump in and check the depth of the well. This is something I would pat my back for if I could just reach it….

Win= Sin? Wrong again. When I win, be it a blogging or any other competition, you need to realize it could be a small victory for me, but a great victory for those women who are lost in the shadows. When, a housewife, uneducated woman competes with great writers, geeks and wins blogging contest, you should stand up and applaud and show some respect, but I find people reacting differently to this so often. My problems, my disabilities do hold me back; distract me when I sit down to write a blog. Yet I do not allow my mind to wander in gloom and doom. I get it to work. 

This is what belongs to ‘me’; this is what I have achieved. Not my survival of cancer. That is where I have been lucky. I share and brag about my cancer survival so that others would realize cancer doesn't mean death. It doesn't control your life. I wish to spread hope of the survival.  I wish someone would really appreciate me for the right reason sometime.