Sweet Pain

I was cursed with being born a girl.

This alone cemented my future before I even managed to take my first breath. Followed by the only time I was possibly allowed to make much noise or dare to cry out.

My mother when I was young used to retell the story of my birth to me.

“Your cries could be heard by many in the hospital. As if you were letting all know that someone special had just arrived and they needed to pay attention..”

For a while I dreamed that it was so.

Time and suffering however had a way to chip away the glossy exterior of my fantasy and leave the stark reality.

I probably cried as I knew what would be waiting for me. Even before my eyes opened, I could probably feel the darkness that surrounded my future. A sensation that would never truly leave me.

Although my entrance to this world was quite dramatic the actual birth itself was uneventful by all accounts.

If they had it their way, the rest of my life would be too.

I would be like dust blowing in the wind from father and brother to husband and son. Waiting to be swept away at the end of my quiet existence.

That could very well have been my predicted future, or maybe my silent rebellion as I grew up could become the start of something new in a family where women were nothing more than possessions. Nothing more than commodities.

Sometimes you have to hurt to feel alive.

I was predicting a lot of pain in my life.

Photo by Hadinet Tekie