The Unspoken Me

My cousin called earlier on, she's coming tomorrow and I just can't wait! It's been nearly 3weeks since we last saw eachother and it's so hard adjusting to her not being so close.

Simply put, that girl is my soul mate. Only a few months separates us age-wise (me being the older one) and we grew up next door to one another until we were about ten. Since then we've just depended on one another for everyhing and spent countless days together, laughing, crying and just sharing I guess. But she married in December and lives 2hours away now, I guess if it was done in the standard way then maybe it would be easier but as usual real life is alot different to the desired life.

She was raised completely different to me, while my parents were easy going and relaxed, hers were very strict on her and in a sense distant. She longed to have parents like mine and it's weird because I felt like I wanted her parents- I could see some of the reasons behind their strictness and just showed me they loved her but were too protective and made me feel that maybe my parents didn't that's why they let me do as I wanted. I know differently now and that some of us simply are never satisfied! So as my cousin was raised in her way, and me mine, people in the community would notice us together and state how my cousin is like the perfect daughter and me the opposite. They said she should be kept away from me because I wasn't good and the reputation has stll stuck, the local asian lot are these days disapproving of the fact that I'm out late and of all the stupid things I walk around with my head up (apparently I should walk with my gaze lowered- I'm not even going to bother commenting on the stupidity of this). Little do these people know that I laugh at their opinions, I am who I am and I can't be moulded into someone I'm not. They should have tried a bit harder to change me before I started thinking for myself.

Anyway we used to hang out everyday just doing silly things but her mum never approved. She'd tell us as girls we shouldn't go out or play up but the thing that stayed with me more was how she blamed me for everything that went wrong. If my cousin was to fall and hurt herself, somehow I was blamed. If she answered her mum back, it was my fault. If she started a liking for something her mum didn't apprve of, again it was my fault. Other members of my family noticed but didn't say anything, I didn't know until recently when it came up in conversation and another aunt told me.

So my cousin started rebelling against her mum even more, she didn't notice her mums attitude towards me at that point but we continued wreaking havoc in the way kids do and passing time. Now I see that her mum is jealous of the relationship me and my cousin have. She is her only daughter and tried hard to build some sort of relationshp with her but she just didn't know how, the more she failed, the colder she got and now I won't speak to her.

Ok so I need to get some things off my chest. I absolutely hate people who can't accept their own mistakes, I don't even expect apologies if someone has done wrong to me but for fucks sake at least hold your hand up and admit it. Whenever I've done something wrong and believe me I have done loads of bad things, I always accept my mistakes, hell I've even accepted the blame for other peoples mistakes because they can twist things and make me feel as if I was the wrong doer. Sometimes I feel that within the family I'm some sort of devil the way that if anything bad happens the cause can somehow always be traced back to me.

I grew up thinking I had some sort of bad spirit inside me and people would be like seek help for me and help 'cleanse' me before I get out of hand. I don't know how familiar everyone is with spirits and black magic but within asian families alot of them believe in these bad spirits that someone with a vendetta will send to an enemy to make their lives bad. Believe me when I learned about this I thought it was all rubbish but I've seen things that prove that black magic does exist but not in the exaggerated way that some people believe. I mean I know this woman who if you compliment her new clothes for example, say later on in the day/week/month the clothes get messed up in some way the woman will be like omg so and so did black magic or gave nazar, which means to curse in some extent (my urdu isn't great!)

Yeah so this black magic/ cursing is what alot of the older generations spend their lives revolving around (something bad happens in the house, 'omg who's done black magic on us?!) It pisses me right off, it builds up the safety net of shifting the blame onto some unseen power that you can't control for when something happens so you clear yourself of any blame. I hate it. Like the other day my aunt called and told my mum that her son broke his arm. She was like omg this other woman had visited that day and they were watching the kids in the garden when the visitor said that my cousin had grown so much and she must've put nazar (cursed) her son somehow. When I heard I was like W-T-F is wrong with these people, my idiot cousin climbed a fucking tree, lost grip and fell on his arm. He's a kid, they fall and hurt themselves all the time but NO it had to be black magic. I swear that woman is losing the plot and you know what pisses me off even more, it's the fact that she isn't alone in thinking that way. Almost every older asian I know believes in this rubbish the way my aunt does.I said before I do believe it exists cos I've seen it but I don't point the cause of every bad thing in my life to black magic, it's just ridiculous. I thank God endlessly for giving me parents who aren't deluded like some others in my family.

Anyway sorry I'm a bit tired so might go off the point at times! So when I was younger I was a bit hyper and other times a recluse. I didn't conform attitude and behaviour wise to the expectations for an asian girl. OK so they 'should' be quiet, neat, obedient, speak perfect urdu and other stuff and for a start I was a messy child, answered parents back, noisy, always out with my brothers and basically not the expected child for an asian but a perfectly normal kid. Interfering aunts and uncles would constantly tell my parents to get me seen by a religious man to find out what was wrong with me and they did take me. It started around the age 9 I think. So all these comments used to anger me so much, I'd keep quiet but always used to be mad cos there was nothing wrong with me, there isn't. These people are just so indoctrinated to a certain train of thought and standards of behaviour and I just didn't conform. It hurt because I was just being me and I was being seen as posessed. Since then I've always been wary of my actions and what I do because I don't want people to think like that of me and I never let my guard down. I hate it because when I try to be me I'm always thinking what will the other person think of me and I try not to.

I dunno it's confusing.

I finally did it!!! I've been meaning to do this for so long but never got round to it, things just build up and I guess I will use this to put down thoughts and things.

So I'm planning to go to university in September, should be Bristol but going to wait and see what happens. I'm going to be nearly 2years behind and I'm so anxious about this, I've been at another university for a year and a half then in Decemeber decided I didn't like the course so now waiting to start Economics. Really excited, can't wait to get back in that environment of learning with the social side of it. My liver will be screaming for mercy by the end of the first week but it's all part of the experience lol.

Well saying that I really need to clear my head about religion. I'm a Muslim and though in my heart I know for sure that it is the truth and only religion for me, I feel that I'm also a failure of a Muslim and at times shouldn't call myself one purely so that the name of Islam is not tainted. I don't cover myself up (wearing the most flimsiest of clothes that I can just about get past my parents in lol), I hardly pray, I drink alcohol, I've slept with past boyfriends. I feel so lost right now, I get so guilty when I think of my actions and see some of my friends who are excellent examples of happy modern Muslim women but I can't seem to get myself to commit to it. I used to be fairly religious before but slowly things have changed and I've become this person who I don't even know anymore. It scares me and makes me feel so isolated from everyone else because I feel like I'm putting on an act for the different people I hang around with then when I'm alone I don't know how to be because I just don't know who I am.

There've been some quite big changes in my life in the last few months and I've started something which I know is very stupid but at the same time I still do it. I'm hurting my body and pushing it to the limits and I don't know why but I need to. Physically I've changed drastically, I've lost over 3stones and on my way to becoming underweight, changed hair colour, dress sense and mentally I'm just trying to figure out whats going on. I feel like I've switched off mentally and letting something else take control over my actions and now I'm waking up and seeing whats changed. The scary thing is I know this is probably the time to seize control and sort myself out because I'm semi-aware that this is all wrong, not just with regards to religion but something else is not quite right and if I don't help myself now I'm going to lose myself.

Give me strength