Some Days I Feel Small

Some days I am reminded that the world is not bus rides and fairy-tales and happily-ever-afters. Not for all of us. Not for many of us.

I'm back to summer Kristen, which means I am back to the roller-coaster of hourly emotions. It's something about the smell. It smells like summer-time again. One whiff of the sweet Punjabi air and my heart races back to six months ago, to the same queries, the same questions, the same bursting hopes, and I open the living room door half expecting for the old characters to return.

Increasingly it's as if the past six and a half months have been but a dream, even though I am living in it, now. It's as if I am living a life that changed me but never actually came to pass.

And today was a reminder of WHY. It was a reminder of why I am here, of why we soldier on, of why my mind and heart spin from the whirlwind of oppression that women face simply because of their sex. Simply because we are born, simply because we are.

It started this afternoon as I was perusing the New York Times (yes, a favorite pass-time). The "World" section begins with a piece on an abuse case that has roused India's middle class --- a adolescent girl who was molested by a police officer, who came forth about the abuse, and who suffered the most dire consequences imaginable. Her life, literally, became a living hell. First came her expulsion from school, then her brother's arrest and torture, then the threats that the same fate would befall her father. She poisoned herself at 18. The police officer has, finally, been convicted. He will serve 6 months in prison and pay a $22 fine.

Then I went to the shop to buy beer. It is my roommate's 21st, and so I am the party orchestrator (which means I am the dal chef and beer purchaser for the evening). As I turned to leave the shop a man walked past and, subtly, as always, lightly touched my hindquarters. Just barely, of course, so that it can pass as just an accident. I AM ENRAGED. Seething. But what do you do? Chase down this stranger who may or may not have grabbed your ass and pummel his face before breaking the backpack full of beer bottles on his head? It's demeaning, it's infuriating, and it's incredible how one unprovoked touch can cut the very core of your being. You feel... small.

And then the final blow of the afternoon came when the recently filled out surveys were put in my hands. Someone who I deeply adore, someone who I admire, someone who I can say is possible one of the most pure human beings I have ever met answered that, in all of the hypothetical situations cited, domestic violence is sometimes justified. Not never, not always, but sometimes.

Justified... justified... justified.

Even the dead cement floor heard my heart break.

So today I am reminded of the walls, the roadblocks, the deeply engrained prejudice, the mistreatment, the centuries we must overcome. I am reminded of what it is to be a woman, of what it is to feel small because of your rage, of what it is to have a passing hand's touched seared into your upper thigh like a scabbing tattoo. It's like the layer of skin is enlarged. You can feel it, even hours after the touch is gone.

Today I feel small.
And all this, every ounce of it, is personal.