the box made of sand paper

Sometimes it feels as if I’m stuck, like I’m watching the world as an outsider while I’m trapped in a box, one made of sandpaper, so easy to push through, yet hard to walk out of.

I would be lying if I said I remembered the exact moment this feeling creeped in. That unsettling realization that I was rigid and categorized by societal expectations.

I doubt there is a definitive moment because it’s always been a comrade, looming like a dark cloud even when I was scared to admit it.

It’s a sober truth, knowing that something was controlling me. Knowing, more than ever that I was limited, like who I am did not matter because, at the end of the day, I was burdened by the norms of world.

Growing up was a long walk of feeling diminished and fighting my own thoughts. It was a constant battle between who I wanted to be, who I really was, and who I was told to be.

I had waged a war in myself and I felt tired from wearing the mask all the time, of atoning for mistakes I hadn’t committed but believed were inevitable.

I mean, it’s a universal truth that high school is supposed to be your formative years, but for me, that was where I felt the most alienated. I guess I wanted to be popular, to be liked—and I was ready to do that even if it meant falling into a spiral where I would lose myself.

Although I had always been good at academics, I never felt as if I reached my potential—and that, truly, was because of the stereotypes.

This prescribed beliefs that as women we are expected to conform to a particular way of being. That you could be assertive, but not too much. Be smart, but not intimidating. In sum, this idea was not just about the way you acted, but extended to your vanity and your attitude.

These expectations make you feel guilty for acting in any way other than the status quo, of being embarrassed to be vulnerable until you become a chameleon who’s constantly reflecting the color of the room.

It translated to a weight resting on my chest, because my words were stolen even before they were expressed.

That constant feeling has left me unsure of who I am—at 13, at 18, and even now at 21.

I thought, if I was thirteen years old and already typecast, what would that mean for me in a decade?

I believed I couldn’t be me and that was the hardest pill to swallow.

Teachers rarely took a chance on me to develop my ideas, because I didn’t seem like the type. Acquaintances never asked my opinion because they had already assumed the answer.

Fast forward to today, where I’ve been thinking and I know that this feeling, this weight, has cost me so much. It has killed so many dreams before they even had the chance to be realized. It has forced me into this position of becoming a shapeshifter, torn between different identities. But now, more than ever, I know I need to break free from it.

It should be easy, right? After all, the box is made of sandpaper. It’s light, because it’s just an illusion—an illusion made of words that have been passed down. But those words are buried within me—so internalized that I sometimes hear the critics speaking from my own lips.

It’s disappointing. It’s hard. But it’s here, and it’s real.

I often wonder if society will ever wake up or if it does, whether it will think about all the voices that were forced to be quiet, all the lights that were dimmed, all the forces that were driven out.

But I can’t wait for society to snap out of it, maybe it won’t ever.

All I know is, I need to forge my own path even if that means my hands have to bleed.

I know walking out of this box will be hard. It is hard. But I will listen to my voice. And I will listen to the voices of my loved ones until this box becomes an open expanse, until it stops being rough, and ceases to a whisper.