Confidence and Friendships

It is the new year, finally. When I was thinking about what I wanted to write about in my first post for the year, I was confused. I had two thoughts in mind—confidence and friendship. It is quite fitting, really, because those were the two of the most important things that moulded my year and two things that I wish will extend their warm arms into the new year. Maybe more than friendship, I mean camaraderie? I don’t really know at this point, but then, I am going to let myself sit in that unpredictability, revel in it, even (after all, I could justify it on the basis of confidence in myself, right?). But quite honestly, I am afraid that this post would become a disappointment (and a nasty voice in my head whispered almost immediately: “like my life”). But I am not going to entertain that anymore, and actually, as I write this post, I am recognising how much I might have changed.

What do I mean by confidence, I wonder, because there are too many dictionary definitions and they all seem more and more relevant as I think of them. But confidence with respect to people and my relationships to them is probably what I am most interested in at the moment. It becomes important to put the “at the moment” because people change, desires change, interests change and no one is to blame. I repeat, NO ONE is to blame, because it becomes quite convenient to place blame on something or someone. It gives one the space to allow themselves to completely feel whatever they’re feeling. And of course, that should not be policed, but it should also be monitored to stop it from becoming self-indulgent. A very thin line, I must say, and a line I constantly struggle with. I went from being tyrannically vigilant to criminally lax, it took me the entire semester and a few more days to mistakenly hit the good mark. And like all fluke hits, I could not reach it again the next time. But it is slightly better now, I am more precise with my lines now and it is completely underwhelming but I could genuinely do with some less drama in my life.

When I look up the word confidence, it gives me two meanings (on my Apple Dictionary #AcademicHonesty). In all honesty (wink, wink) though, plagiarism is not cool by any measure and this is just a lighthearted joke not meant to take away from the importance of academic honesty (sigh, I have become so paranoid-careful, it is quite funny). Coming back, confidence apparently means 2 broad things: 1) the feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something, and 2) the telling of private matters or secrets with mutual trust. Both of them are pertinent with respect to interpersonal relationships and friendships in particular. Friendship is, after all, meant to be a safe space that you can trust. And there are varying degrees to this confidence, of course, different places work as safe spaces for different kinds of issues. And not all places are available spaces, 24/7, and for all kinds of problems. The only place that is REQUIRED to be so is the internal space, but well, let’s come to that some day some time, not now. 

When it comes to friendship, there’s another confidence that not many people seem to talk about. Yes, you are confident that the other side shall be there for you, but there’s a worry that maybe you are not enough. There is a lack of confidence in your own place in that space—are you just a parasitic plant using that space to dump your garbage in? Are you a good friend yourself, who can also act as a space for the other side. And here’s a beautiful complication, do you operate in that same degree or are you allowed to be different? In the sense, if you go to a person A for some B thing, is A welcome to come to you only with something like B? Are you a good person to listen to a B? What happens if you don’t want to deal with a B, or even if you do, you don’t want to listen to it from A? Are you in an equal partnership, are you doing enough for the other person? First of all, do we even want to quantify this? What purpose does it even serve, and who does it serve that purpose for?

I think this break has allowed me the space to think and rethink a lot of these things. One of the problems I faced the last semester had a lot to do with these questions. It was something that plagued my mind for the longest time and I had no way to deal with it. Even conversations with people directly did not help and sometimes, I lost the words even before I could say them. A lot of these insecurities lacked rationality—the more I tried to explain them to someone else, the more my words ran into each other and became a muddled mess. I could not explain my own reasoning for a conclusion or decision I had made, unconsciously egged on by my insecurities. And friendships and confidence become so tied into this mess, that at a point of time, I could not distinguish between what was happening and what I was thinking was happening and it ruined my mental health. Mind you, this was only ONE thing out of many things and if each made such an impact, I was paving my path to destruction with top quality concrete.

One of the realisations I have come to accept is that there can be varying degrees (in fact, it is completely expected), even between the same two parties. Varying degrees, based on time, based on place, based on people, based on a thousand different things and there’s no foolproof method to know what is the degree at what point of time. But unfamiliarity is cool and well, communication is cool too. The two parties need to be comfortable enough to admit when the degree is not working for them and be ready to solve it. It doesn’t mean that the preference is set in stone, because like I said, people change, desires change, interests change and NO ONE is to blame. All that matters is that communication channels are up and ready and they don’t collapse. And well, allow me a moment of self-indulgent pride, it is quite heartening for me to realise that I am actually helping myself instead of ruining everything for myself. That’s, after all, all I wanted especially during times when I could not help myself despite being desperately in need of it. And a small part of me is wary and doubts if I will be so confident when I am pushed back into a bad space. Part of me wants to say I won’t go back into a bad place, but that is quite unrealistic given the amount of stress that is going to inevitably fall on me. So all I can do is quite counter-intuitively pretend I am confident, in myself and my relationships, and hope that my pretence doesn’t get to be proved to be false (and a strong part of me believes that it won’t be). I have grown and I am ready for the new year to make me grow more and at this point of time, that’s all I want.

Happy New Year!

PS: As you can see, I have scrapped some of my traditions like ending with “that’s my memory for the day,” ending with a question. Also, this post is hopefully not the only kind of post I will be writing. I intend to write different kinds of things, even though I am not entirely sure what those different things are. But I want to break away from some mental restrictions of mine, starting with this blog. Keep that as my new year resolution number 1.

Journey with My Hair

It was when I was around the age of 12 when I first started taking proper notice of my own hair. I had been blissfully unaware of its vices and advantages for a large part of my childhood. My mother would mercilessly oil and brush and braid my hair into plaits, whose ends would feel and look as dry as the metal wool used to scrub vessels. I also did not really use any hair products, tamely accepting the new shampoo that my mother would have bought (which would change almost every other month). No conditioner, no leave-ins, no serums, no anything. I didn’t even know what they were. I hated my hair at the time, it used to be extremely dry and get tangled by the time I could sneeze. I just had to leave it open for a millisecond before I would be wailing in pain as my mother would pull the brush hard, down my hair. I was used to the violent life, I still was until very recently, when I realised that I had been approaching my hair the completely wrong way.

As a young child, I wanted hair like the ones in the advertisements for top shampoos. I would look at a Priyanka Chopra or an Aishwarya Rai, throwing their hair around as it fell in beautiful sheets around their form. I grew up watching Sunsilk, Pantene, Loreal Paris, Garnier etc, and as I saw a new one, I would beg my mother to get the new one the next time she would buy shampoo. Of course, conditioner was still something I was partially unaware of, so I wasn’t asking for the conditioner. It was at this time that my mother would tell me two things–one, “if you are not tame yourself, how will your hair be tame?” and two, “no one’s hair ever looks like that in the advertisements, naturally. It is part graphics.” I would have gladly believed that, but I saw friends around me who had silky smooth hair, that they literally did nothing for. Some of them did even less than me, they wouldn’t even apply oil (which my mother sold to me as the miracle ingredient that would make my hair silky smooth) at times.

I had friends whose hair would just flow out of their ponytails while mine couldn’t even be left alone in one, because it would get extremely tangled. My only option to have decent hair was to have it in two plaits or a braid, and even then, the ends which were left free would be a tangled mess. No amount of brushing made it alright (and now I realise that brushing was, in fact, contributing to my hair issues), despite what everyone believed. I was asked if I didn’t comb my hair that day, had I not oiled it, questions and concerns directed at me from all circles. In a school where everyone was dressed conservatively and were very well-kempt in looks, I looked like I had been pulled through a hedge whilst someone banged my head repeatedly on the bushes by the side. While my clothes and attire were always meticulously worn, my hair on the other hand, there have been times when I wished I were bald instead.

I remember the first time I saw a curly-haired classmate, who had beautifully defined curls which weren’t frizzy. That started my desire for nicely curly hair, a desire I still harbour to this day. Every time I wash my hair, I wonder if that is the day when my dream of having gorgeous, defined and frizz-free curls will come true. There are days when I reach close to that dream, days when my hair behaved wonderfully for a couple of days and then, it goes back to square one. I remember that seeing this classmate’s hair was when I properly started wishing for my natural curls instead of the straight hair that a lot of my friends had. I was obsessed with beautiful ringlets and small, tight curls, that were bouncy and shiny. It was around this time that I was able to access the internet with a freedom beyond whatever I had ever experienced until then. I would spend hours online, looking for ways to take care of and maintain curly hair.

My grandparents’ house was my laboratory because it had everything I would ever need. From olive oil to fresh aloe vera gel straight from the plant, I could access multiple ingredients that dominated the world of DIY hair products. I started doing multiple permutations and combinations (this later became a joke amongst my friends, the girl who did P&C for her hair), with very varied and sometimes disappointing results. The problem could have been that despite making those hair masks, I did not have a good hair routine, a good shampoo and conditioner that I would have had to use, plus the freedom to leave my hair without brushing. If I did not brush my hair, it went extremely tangled and I needed to brush it out in order to save my hair was tangling up beyond repair.

This journey is by no means complete, and there are many parts that I simply did not find the space to type out here. Why did I even recollect this journey? I think a part of the reason why is because I grew up listening to people tell me that I should not be caring so much about hair. It is hair, after all, it doesn’t deserve my time and efforts, it never shall. That is quite a toxic idea to preach because it invalidates my insecurities about my own hair and personality, made me believe that in addition to feeling and looking bad and having self-esteem issues, I was, in addition, doing something as menial as worrying about something like hair. It added to my worries, it continues to do so. Even sometimes these days, I catch myself chastising myself for worrying that much about my hair, and then I immediately remind myself of what has been a tough journey, which is still a tough journey (that still suffers from a lack of support from my family). I am still plagued with my mother constantly nagging me to brush my hair and commenting on how ugly it looks, my confidence take a hit on those days, especially if I had just been feeling quite nice about my curls. It is quite a long journey so far, it promises to be an even more tough journey henceforth, I shall be able to progress here, won’t I?

And that’s my memory for the day.

About Interviews and Resumes

I had an interview for a student government ministry today. I had applied to the cultural ministry for three different portfolios. I really want to get in and I am very anxious. It reminded me immediately of the interviews I underwent for colleges, for the various clubs and events that I have been a part of, in college. And I am afraid that I am being over-confident this time. It is a scary feeling that I expect myself to get selected (there, I finally said it), that I want to get selected. But I also know that it is very tough to get selected, especially because there were so many others who had applied. All who have been doing substantial amounts of work so far.

Before filling the application, I had to ask myself a thousand times if I had it in me. I have been juggling quite a lot already and I didn’t know if I could add another item to my plate. But after a lot of time thinking about it, I realised that this was something I really wanted to do. The added advantage is that it would look good on my resume (there, I said this too). It is liberating to say things out loud. I have been trying to understand whether my motivation for applying to the ministry was because of its value in my resume or because I liked the job description. And I realised that it was both and I did not want to confront that part of myself.

It has been ingrained in me that joining something for the value it adds to your CV is being shallow and pretentious. I wouldn’t be surprised if I still think that. Precisely why I did not want to think about my own motivations for applying. But I have also realised that this is not necessarily a bad thing. I can apply for a multitude of reasons and my CV can be one of them. It is not a crime or something that should be abhorred. In fact, I think it helps to do some things because of the value it adds to your CV. It shows an extra skill you are capable of and don’t we all like to feel good about ourselves.

But then, all this talk as if I have already got in. My friends think I will because I got through other interviews so far. It has been a bit of a dream run, almost too good to be true. Now, I am not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I am constantly terrified of whether changing times will make me confront possibilities of immense failure. And it is definitely not a reassuring thought, trust me.

I don’t want to be overconfident, it sets me up for disappointment. I don’t want to be self-deprecating (though that is what happens most of the time). It is easy to be hard on yourself and think bad about yourself. When it is my own work that I am critiquing, it is so much easier to think bad about it and feel like it is dumb. It is a mechanism, a way of tackling my own sense of deteriorating self-worth (by reinforcing the inadequacies? I do like to torture myself, I am noticing). But then, everyone is filled with these contradictions within themselves. And we don’t notice those as much as we do ourselves. We are all narcissistic creatures who think almost all the time about ourselves (this whole, in fact, an example of this). But then, is being Narcissus narcissarily (necessarily, in case you didn’t get the joke) a ‘bad’ (whatever ‘bad’ may be) thing?

And that’s my memory for the day.