Stand Your Ground. Once In a While.
Anger is my armor.
The Broad Smile and Backfire
It was a Sunday morning. I woke up in the best mood possible. Not sure if it was because of the wonderful sleep I had or because of the grand event I pulled together the previous day. The only thing that mattered was that I woke up with a huge smile on my face. I was not completely awake but was still trying to find a comfortable spot to settle down and look at myself in the mirror, right across my bed.
I tried to open my eyes a couple of times and failed. There were only two things I could do at this point, shake and wake myself up or go back to sleep. Neither of those seemed like an option because I was in such a great mood and I didn’t want to spoil it at any cost.
No matter how much ever my brain wanted to jump around, my body was not ready to make the move. With my eyes still closed, I was mentally jotting a plan for the day. The first thing was to walk down, get coffee and to officially announce that I’m in a great mood and beg my people(especially my brother) not to screw it up. As my brain started spun up this beautiful day in front of me, the universe found its way to jinx it and there it was the bang on the door.
The Bang on the Door
I was slowly recovering from my sleep like the effect of a drug is wearing out or something. There it was to screw it all up in one shot. The established rule at our house is that no one bangs the door. A slight single knock and to be left alone. My sweet mom never does anything crazy to wake me up and definitely not on weekends.
But here she was banging my door at 10 AM in the morning(or early morning as I call it). To my surprise, the door was not latched but the banging never stopped. I yelled “I’m coming…….”, “the door is open”, “Just push the bloody door” but nothing seems to be working. The banging never stopped. I struggled, reached the door and at the peak of my anger I snapped. Fortunately, it was not my mom.
The Snap
I opened the door. There she was, my aunt(not so favorite) and her two daughters greeting me with a broad smile expecting the same back. I am not so comfortable with standing my ground when it comes to my extended family but after a couple of incidents, I knew I should start somewhere and today was the day and no one had a clue that today was going to be the day.
Words just spilled out of my mouth in the worst fume of anger. “DO YOU HAVE ANY SENSE?”. My aunt as if she didn’t hear what I was asking said “What?” and just walked into my room, just like that, not minding the state I was in.
Not able to contain it any further I asked them to get out my room. They sure didn’t understand why I was being so rude. “PLEASE, GET OUT OF MY ROOM. PLEASE, PLEASE.”, I said 3 times, walked them out and shut the door from behind.
To Earth
I felt horrible. I know it was not the best behavior, but if someone just takes the privilege to climb a floor and screw up your day just because they are “family”? Not accepted here.
Now I have to face the mess I made. I went down, greeted my uncle. The room became tense because I had to greet my aunt now. “I’m sorry aunty, I thought it was mom and I was sleepy, you just scared me to death”. My mom and uncle enquired what happened I told them the bang on the door and how I was sleepy and scared. They were supportive of me and rolled their eyes at my aunt.
My aunt, unable to accept her defeat, loaded her gun(her misogynistic brain) for the next attack. “Why does a girl have to sleep until 10 in the morning?, I wake up my kids before 8”.
The angry daemon inside of me has stirred up again. My mom, sensing the bomb that is about to blast in the house, ran out of the kitchen. “She is working all week, even yesterday she pulled together an event. She needs that sleep.” Good thing I didn’t have to answer this. To top it up my dad walked into the scene looked at the clock, and gave me a double thumbs up for waking up so early on a Sunday.
Once again Bhavani — 2, Aunt — 0.
Once they all left, I told my mom what really happened and how rude I was. To my surprise she understood. I reran the incident a couple of times again and the more I did the more proud and less guilty I felt. I patted my shoulder for my bravery and started my day at the place where I left off. The happy smile.
- “Age does not deserve respect anymore, how you treat people does. If you are planning to pull me down, I'll pull you along with me.
- Respect people’s privacy. Don’t just start walking around other people’s house and banging every closed door there. So barbaric.
- Stand your ground once in a while. It will feel amazing. I have regretted so many instances where I was numb, but not this time.
