I was walking on the side walk of a random street when I realized that I had stepped on a piece of gum. As I stared down on the enormous piece that acted as the bridge between the floor and my shoe, I contemplated if I should take the gum out of my shoe or continue to walk with it.
I was seven years old and entered America for the first time with my mother, knowing very little about her intentions to remarry and that her decision would be a life changing event in my life that I would have such difficulties habituating to. As a seven year old, all I knew was that I lived in an extremely pampered and loving environment with a family to die for. Grandparents, mom, uncle and aunt, what more did I need to complete such a beautiful family? Yes, a father. A father whose name I could carry, a father whose presence would complete the “emptiness” in my life, a father who was needed for my protection, and a father without whom I would not be considered a “normal” girl in an Indian society. So what if my mother was abused by my biological father to the point that she was hospitalized; she was an Indian girl after all, who according to society needed a husband to live.
I was seven years old when I first met my new father. Being in his arms, my life seemed complete. I now had a father that society always wanted me to have. People failed to understand that my uncle was father to me; they failed to understand that a seven year old girl does not need to call someone “Daddy” to love him and respect him as a father. But that didn’t matter anymore, because I had a man I could officially call “Daddy” who would love me just like my uncle loved me, and this would totally be accepted by society. Right?
Even though my dad was a father in society’s eyes, as a daughter only I know the abuse that was present in our house. Yelling, hitting, cussing, accusing; everything was acceptable just because this man gave me and my mother his “name.” As I grew, I learned to rebel, I learned to change and stand up for myself and my mother. As an Indian-American girl, I promised myself I would not let my children be abused and snatched away from a beautiful, loving family just because they needed a man’s name attached to them.
I decided as I grew in this household, that I would take out and throw away every piece of gum that sticks to my because that one moment of disgust of touching the gum would give me mental satisfaction of a clean shoe. Similarly, rebelling to the abuse and making myself mentally strong encouraged me to throw the gum of abuse away from my life.
Why do I do what I do? Because life is too short to live in the way others want you to live; life is too short to live with something you despise just because others want you to; but most importantly, because life is too short to have any form of “gum” stuck to you for you to ignore and move on.
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