Um, You Were So Happy by Vibha Shetiya

“We were so happy,” he said, emphasizing the so.  

Her thoughts flashed back to that car ride. Hearing that an acquaintance was taking the GRE, she had half-jokingly quipped – “Maybe I should too.” He responded: “You should. You don’t know anything about life. Your life consists of your parents and brother and a handful of friends. It’s time you learned what it really was about,” this time stressing the really. The next few months were spent prepping for entrance exams and sending out grad school applications. Within six months, she was in the US of A.

She couldn’t believe it. She had been trapped for nearly two decades. As a child, she had had no choice. As an adult, it was too late; the indoctrination of being in a family cult had left her completely alienated; she was a stranger to herself. Marriage took on another dimension. Any chance of deprogramming was replaced by degrading, the methods remaining the same though; browbeating and gaslighting as a time-tested and guaranteed method of emotional torment never disappointed.

She arrived in the USA confused and full of familiar self-loathing, prepared to embark upon a new life. Well, at least for the next two years, the time he had granted her. But she didn’t know how. So, she fell into the familiar rut of desperately taking on a persona, trying to be someone she wasn’t, someone who was much better than herself, someone much smarter, someone, well, who wasn’t her. Anyone, but, that loser aka her. The muddled gap between who she longed to be and who she was expected to be perpetually widening.

He sensed her slipping away. After a semester, there were less of the daily calls, less of the clinginess, the need for approval, at least his approval. She seemed desperate to shake off her past. But alas, it was tunnel vision. The newfound sense of freedom was a state of mere transference. One of turning away from an old oppressor to seeking out new ones. She began to wildly tear off her skin, her hair, only to replace them with new, hand-me down toxins. Her soul remained untouched. She may have shed her outer form, but she still remained a stranger. It was not so much as everyone was out to get her. It was the familiar pattern well known in sociological discourse: seeking out those who had complete disregard and disrespect for you.

Two years later – actually two and a half; she had managed to buy an extra semester – she returned. A few weeks prior, he moved far away, to another city hundreds of miles away to ensure she wouldn’t be “stuck” with her parents and brother and those “handful of friends.” He seemed to be on a mission to complete that journey of “It’s time you learned what life was really about.”

Although confusion reigned in her mind, one thing she was sure of – she definitely didn’t want this particular life, a life with him. And one day, a scary but beautiful soundbite managed to break free from her choking throat – “I think we have issues in our marriage.” He wasted no time. “Now you are speaking like an American.”

Soon after she moved out, though, he did an about-turn from denying her even basic acts of love. When he went abroad now, he suddenly recognized her love for chocolate, and once even got her a box from Prague. No thanks, she said, recalling how he would take her shopping to splurge on his friends ignoring her own admiration and desire for little joys. He once even spoke in English to his brother – over the phone, mind you – a departure from the usual habit of leaving her out of conversations in a room full of people who might as well have been speaking in gibberish. She soon realized why. He wanted her to know his father was suffering from cancer, and he felt now was the right time to tell her that “you were his favourite daughter-in-law.” Sadly, it had taken cancer and five years to pass on that message. He had, however, temporarily at least, seemed to have forgotten his resolve that she not get carried away by his (or anyone else’s for that matter) small acts of love.

The next few months were hell, but they will always serve as a reminder of her potential. Her own potential. Not borrowed or stolen or imposed upon by others. She waded through the black hole of humiliation, desertion and self-doubt, she managed to stay alive. Six months later, she was back in the States. It would take two more decades to truly begin the process of deprogramming to discover herself, to learn that she was more than just an echo or reflection of the person before her. But it was a start.

The last conversation was one in which he “reminded” her that the plan all along had been for him to join her in America, but that fell through as he had been unable to find a job, a plan which had come as news to her. His plan as usual. Towards the end of the conversation, he said, “So this is what life is really all about – use and throw,” ruing the fact that she had used him to go to America. She quietly rephrased it – he rued the fact that he had sent her to America.

“We were so happy,” he had said, stressing the so. But she soon found herself catching the accusation midair before it landed on her person – for that is what it was; a charge, a censure – for daring to question him. “You were happy,” she managed to whisper to herself, stressing the you – she still could not be confrontational, or what could be perceived as confrontational. “Not me.”

And as she closed one chapter of her life, she thought she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. She didn’t have to turn to check whose it was. She had returned.

Guanyin had kept her promise.