The Woman I Never Met

“Live on Your Own“

That is the message I would send my younger self if someone handed me a time machine and allowed me just one. 

I would crib about the cruelty of just one message first. How unfair that I am being asked to cram two decades of insights and warnings in one message. I’d be negotiating for a letter and send a tome. Who am I kidding? I’m not the confrontational type. 

I’d say thank you, and ask, “What is the permissible character count?” Years of social media and digital marketing experience will do that to you. Sensitise you toward character counts. 

Let’s see, what could I tell myself.

1. Invest in Reliance or Adani as soon as you start earning
2. Buy good quality sunscreen always
3. Exercise more, eat less, live more?

No, this generic slop of ‘what I’d tell my younger self’ is not me.

If it came down to one message, I’d simply send this: Live on your own.

Why? Because I never have.

I lived with my parents until I got married. Then, with my in-laws. I went from a home where I was looked after to a home where also, I was looked after. And then somewhere down the line, I became the one who was doing the looking after. 

There was never a time when I was alone. Where I wasn’t looked after, and I wasn’t looking after.

Why? Because I think it is extremely important. I almost wish it were a rite of passage into adulthood. So, I’d ask my past self to live alone in her twenties. A year would be best. Six months, at the bare minimum.

A small apartment, studio perhaps. Groceries, furniture, responsibilities all for one. Me, just me. 

I know I am romanticising this a little. Okay, a lot. 

I am very well aware that living alone isn’t an extended vacation where someone else does the chores while you discover yourself. There would have been rent, plumbing issues, pest infestations, rude neighbours or a list of other scenarios when I would have desperately wished for another human being in the house. I might have completely hated it. 

But I wouldn’t know. I have never done it.

See, my reasons for not sending messages about financial security, or holistic well-being and choosing a message to live alone is not just about the experience of the apartment. I am more curious about the person living in it. 

I have spent most of my life with family. When you are in the company of loved ones, you adjust. What to say, and how to say it. You notice someone’s expression change and wonder what needs altering. You learn which battles to pick and which decisions deserve explanations. Basically, you find out a version of yourself that makes life easier for everyone around you, including you.

And isn’t that a good thing? Being a good person, daughter, wife, mother. We all accommodate other people, especially ones we love. 

But if you start doing it before you have properly met yourself, how do you know what is accommodation and what is you?

I never got to meet the woman who did not have to watch every word, her tone, her behaviour, against somebody else’s expectations.

Who was she?

Would I have liked her?

I genuinely don’t know.

We hear so much gyaan about finding our authentic selves. I’ve fantasised that my authentic self is going to be this amazing woman, beautiful inside and out, bursting with wisdom, and benevolence. She is buried somewhere underneath all the conditioning.

But, what if she was annoying, impatient, stubborn and just plain unreasonable?

What if I met the unedited version of myself and thought, “God, I hate who I am”?

Or perhaps I would have liked her very much. 

And if I had met her, how would she have changed me?

Maybe nothing would have changed. I would have lived alone for a year, eaten too much takeaway, and still be exactly the same person I am today.

But I would have gotten to see her. The woman who is a mystery to me now. 

So, live on your own. Then, I can meet you.