Flex your muscles and try holding back to the moving arms of the clock, did you succeed? Even strongest men like Hercules will be crushed in the paws (pause) of time. As powerless humans we all can re-visit time, like the visit to a museum filled with memories and memorabilia.
During such walks I spent some moments in awe and some moments in thaw… Not all moments in life are captured and made available in glass chambers with a discolored and oxidized note that reads “Do not touch”. But there is always a silence, and contemplation when you do such trips.
My recent visit to the museum was to explore the Wh…. moments of my life from my sexuality point of view. When I knew…. Life gives you clues and hints about yourself, but not everyone is agile and smart to decipher them. Only after passage of time, and going through mill of experiences we get to pause and stretch on the paws of time and re-visit to the grail trail to read the clues and finally realize “I missed it then”.
But interestingly when I knew piece always comes with a denial. To some it lasts for a few years and to some it takes decades to reach that point of acceptance. That is when I realized that sometimes things outside the glass chambers are more brittle than the ones inside.
The self-realization happens only after passage of time and after the world realizes the “me”. Twenty five years later when I sit back (not in an easy chair yet!) closing my eyes to recollect my growing up days…. and realize the real “me”. It felt very much like deciphering from a piece of Braille, though weird and rough, I was reading my own life. How did I miss the cues? Did my own eyes not turn blind then? Even co-passengers on the trip were not able to spot them, now I realize I am my own curator.
When others knew….rewind the tapes, and look at the first moment when you couldn’t express your longing for men or the first instance you exhibited your feminine side and your care for men?
Some dressed up in grandmother’s clothes, tried on mother’s lipstick and mascara, painted nails with sister’s nail polish, breast fed and nourished her dolls with care, and some even wore her fancy jewellery and danced to racy bollywood tunes to flying duppattas in front of the mirror. Is imitation the best form of flattery or is it a deep sense of longing? Call it the peacock moments or whatever….but for some this was the defining moment of their sexuality.
But others knew your longing then…. we wanted to be caretakers like womenfolk in our households. Our innocence limited our expression and we choose to express it differently.
It was not easy when other knew….Our families got to see the uncensored premiere of our sexuality. Some scorned at our longing and innocence, some stole our happiness in bud, and some dismissed “all this gimmicks” as a growing up thing, while some knew the real “fruitcake” in the family.
Was our flamboyance underrated as frivolousness or was our sexuality overrated as perversion? I had no clue then and it was easy to deal with ignorance and innocence. But now thinking about it and looking at the reflection of my sexuality, it was always glaring and quirky.
When I am ok with it…. is the toughest of the Wh… moments…after having gone through the torture and taunt for being and behaving different in school, trying to solve the mystery about ourselves, constantly caught in the low tide of pride and self esteem, living with the feeling of “victims of my own sexuality”, going through the denial mill for years, and finally end the years of freedom struggle within and reach our destination – I am ok with it.
Should we call such holy grail trips as defining moments in life or re-defining moments in life? Once you reach the destination the overbearing cross of sexuality disappears, gasping for survival ends, a fresh lease of life infused, a feeling of re-birth, a smile of approval and acceptance, and shoulders feel light, and finally what the world calls perversion becomes our pride. A life that was once seemed a dead end and dusty is now a paved road and clean laid out directions.
In the journey of life nobody can bring back the lost moments be it happiness or time, but can rewind the moments, come to terms with it and replace the old discolored and brittle piece and sad piece of paper in the museum with fresh, and clean paper that reads “I am special”.
