One out of seven billion selves @gingerdream

This self is one self out of over seven billion selves who live on Earth. A single self who doesn't have the most dramatic life story. This self lives in a decent sized town in South Africa, it is surrounded by mountains and has its own game reserve.

This self knows she is lucky. She has two parents who love her very much and a younger brother. They are supportive and caring. They love this self and she loves them. Most of the time unless she is angry with them. This self is Indian, South Indian, from Kerala to be specific. She hates that part at times. It brings expectations, she has to be academic and people told her to screw her head on right when she said she wanted to study English. She is wasting her academic ability.

The self thinks they're right but never says so. It would be admitting defeat and although she did not write English on her university application forms she also refused to write medicine. She does not believe wanting prestige is a good enough reason for her to become a doctor.

As you can see this self loves to ramble but she also loves to read. Reading is her way of making friends as she does not have any or maybe she has many. She never knows. Books are never offended by the way she talks or the way she thinks. They are there and they enjoy her presence just as much as she enjoys theirs. They take away the loneliness of being a teenager without friends at many times.

It is funny, as she was the child in grade 1 who threw her school reader against the wall in frustration and burst into tears because she only wrote two sentences in three days for creative writing. She is grateful though to the books who have shaped her and held her hand. They made her world bigger and better than she ever dreamed possible.

A self who went to a single-sex school since grade 1. She doesn't hate it but it would be nice to have people around. It is not like in the books on wattpad where everyone is not straight and it sounds fun. It is cut-throat, womanized, bitchfest at times. You have to stay strong and think fast and be an animal but a lady at the same time. She almost sighed with relief when she was placed in the boys' physics class at extra physics. It made her feel less conscious of herself and it was ok to look dumb at times. They taught her it was ok to be a lot of things and let her rave or make direct comments. It is times like that where she realizes that diversity brings more good than harm to the world.

This is a self who had to learn to open her mind. She did not always think that discrimination is wrong or love is love. Reading online and wattpad forced her to look into herself and ask herself about equality and equity. It made her see that unfair discrimination and hatred in the name of religion should be stopped as no religion preaches hate. This is a self who made the decision never to do anything or to stand for something she did not believe in or could not uphold. She tries very hard not to be fake. She forced herself to see the ugly in order to bring out the good she wanted to see in herself.

This is the self who still believes in love stories and fairy-tales. Who waited patiently for her Hogwarts letter to arrive and still firmly believes it only got lost in the mail. This is a self who has to learn to grow up and make friends as she will soon leave the town in which she has spent all eighteen years of her life. This is the self who wants to help teenagers when she is older because she remembers being sad, confused and angry at the world as one and is grateful for the people who held her and kindly calmed her down.

This is the self who still doesn't know her sexuality or kissed a person or dated or fell-in-love or grown-up and still wears a size A bra when the rest of her grade has much bigger boobs. This is a self who is still scared of filling in university application forms because she is so scared of making the wrong decision. This self is eighteen and doesn't know what she wants out of life but is willing to follow the wind. This is a self who still watches cartoons in the morning, anime at night and reads manga during the day. This is the self who tells people they are more than their report card. This is a self who sucks at sport but could be so much more if she tried. This is a lazy self, an insecure self, an airhead self, a still changing self. 

A normal teenage self, with normal teenage troubles and worries and an unhealthy addiction to reading and music. A self who thinks it is ok to hide things at times, to slowly reveal yourself at the pace your comfortable in or not reveal yourself at all. A self who just prays you don't kill yourself pleasing others and that every decision you make is worth the sacrifice it takes. A self who believes in both God and man. A self who is not defined by a single aspect or moment in their life.

This is a self. One out of more than seven billion selves with probably the least dramatic story in existence. This is me, Dhrishya Mariam Thomas and I would like to think I am more than a nameless self.