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It was a spring evening, the sky blushed pink and the vibrant clouds floated by. Yet amidst these, Rhea lay alone on her bed, watching the ethereal sky above. Her eyes appeared swollen, probably from all the morning tears and a silent turmoil raging within her soul. Her mind lays blank with all that overthinking about the weight of expectations and the shackles of norms. As she lay there, prisoner of her own thoughts, in her darkest moments, the only thought she has is for the world to vanish, to be swallowed whole by the void, she only thinks of destruction.
You see for her being a girl is not easy. Her path was already decided even before she was born. Carrying the weight of hopes upon her fragile shoulders, she was expected to be gentle, soft spoken and responsible. She was encouraged to study and have a dream. But only what her mother could not fulfill. She was expected to be her mother's dream and it was made sure that she knew it very well.
“Nobody…not even a single person asked me what my dream was”.
Everyone expects her to fulfill her mother's dream and goes on to explain how beautiful and good it would be for her.
"It is good...but it's for not me!"
For her, she harbours her own aspirations, her own path and she wishes to change little things around her. She carries that burden of expectations for too long. The pain she has been carrying for the past twenty years of never being able to speak her mind, she cannot take it any longer.
She thinks her anger makes her sane in the midst of it.
Fuelled by it, she becomes a rebel in her own right. She does exactly the opposite of what people say. She justifies her act as a strength of opposition. As her acts become more and more mischievous, the consequences leave her battered both physically and emotionally.
As she stood in despair, her anger morphed into something darker, something more sinister. And in that moment of darkness, she contemplated the ultimate act of defiance, the final rebellion against a world that had never seen her for who she truly was.
"Only if I disappear...only if."
In the depths of the human soul, where light and darkness collide, there exists a chamber seldom explored—a place where whispers of doubt and shadows of fear reside. It is here, that she found herself face to face with her inner demon.
"It is scary".
"Don't get scared, for I am a reflection of you.
I reflect your wounds, your pain, your anger, your sufferings that have been kept for years. You think you have healed, but you're wrong. As time passes, you have learned to hide me.
Don't ignore me, for I grow on and on.
Learn to embrace me and you will gain strength."
As you stay more in light, you are tempted to see darkness. And as you stay in darkness, you start seeing the gleam of light. And that cycle continues.
"Doing such things will not change anything, my dear Rhea. You cannot win by escaping. Know this, my dear Rhea, light and darkness are two sides of the same coin, forever locked in a dance of eternal longing.
To embrace one is to acknowledge the other.
To recognize that within the depths of despair lies the glimmer of hope, and within the embrace of light, the shadows of doubt."
And as Rhea stood there she knew that this encounter was but the beginning of her journey—a journey where light and darkness converge, where true strength is born and as she transforms from a girl to a woman.
For some reason it feels motivational