Dear Esperenza,
Last
night, I saw a dream where I was trying to be somebody else, but meanwhile I
tried and left being someone else. This morning when I woke up, I remembered you. I
know, like you, I am also the one who is a misfit. Like you, I am an ugly daughter,
except my grandma nobody told me beautiful. I am the one who was constantly heard of as the one nobody comes for. I waited my whole life to be loved and accepted.
But you know, we are misfits, even in the process of being accepted, who choose
to be unaccepted. We have misfit stories to tell the world. Dear Esperenza, we
belong, but we don’t belong. Belonging is something we deny.
Do you know my cousin Rita got
married, like we knew she would, young and not ready, but married just the same.
She met someone older than her through a local matchmaker and she married before being
twenty-five. Like your friend Sally, she has her husband and her house now, her
pillowcases and her plates. She says she is in love, but I think she pretends
being in love.
Like Sally Rita says, she likes being
married because now she gets her own things when her husband gives her money.
She is happy, except sometimes her
husband gets angry like Sally’s.
Do you know, like Sally, she sits at
home because she is afraid to go outside without her permission. Like Sally,
she looks at all the things: his towel, his office attire, his shoes.
Dear Esperenza, we are unfit because we choose some difficult choices. Neither we choose a daddy’s house nor husband’s. We
have our own books and diaries. Two shoes waiting beside the bed. But we have stories. Do you know, society is
fearful because of our stories. No one expects stores from us. We are expected to be wives. Being a mother. Or being a nurturer but not a writer. You know, we are
doing the least expected thing. But we have stories.
Do you know why I told Rita’s story, which resembles Sally’s story? Because they are fit, we are misfits. Don’t you
think being fit is so uncanny?
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