The New Old Me

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”- TS Elliot.

In high school, I was exposed to this quote in a science class, and in that context, I interpreted it in terms of scientific exploration for the purpose of learning more about the human condition. Basically, I took it to mean that you cannot know yourself unless you know the world you live in.

With a bachelor's degree in English, I can think of at least 5 other ways to interpret this quote. Now, sitting in my high school bedroom, with a bachelor's degree in English, one of the interpretations is particularly compelling because it explains why my entire college career felt like an existential crisis.

When my mother explains my initial college dropout to her friends, she explains that Geneseo is too far away, so I couldn't endure the transition. Believing she meant I was overcome with homesickness, I disavowed her explanation, knowing there was more to it than the distance. And besides, that made me sound like a wimp. More specifically, it made me sound like the stereotypical, domestically inclined, Bengali, Muslim woman the American feminist in me adamantly resisted. Though breaking that stereotype is important to me, my resistance was not just a matter of principle. I knew that in America, the woman I aspired to be required not just competence but prowess outside the confines of domesticity.

When I graduated high school, I was confident I could achieve my desired manner of prowess. In high school I was widely known and well liked (enough to be voted class president) despite being pretty nerdy and definitely not classically popular. I was perfectly happy with the place I had cultivated for myself and  believed it could be replicated in the world at large.

However, in my belief, I failed to take into account the reality of my situation. In high school, when I wasn't in school, I was always home or with my family. For me, unmonitored outside world interactions were limited to school hours and school activities, limited internet, books, TV and a handful of birthday parties my parents reluctantly gave me permission to attend. I was actually jealous when my peers started working because I felt even further behind in "real" life experience. I worked to gain experience by joining as many after school activities I could possibly interest myself in. Unfortunately, my opposition gave me a false sense of accomplishment and lead me deny my home life as a major element of my identity. It wasn't until I lived away from my family again that I understood the extent of my social impediments or their consequences.

Sitting in my room today, I am not nearly as inclined to escape it as I one was. This is not because I've become complacent. Just moments ago, I realized my college years were spent in frustration and self-hatred because, after my initial failure, I was forced out of any notions of worldly experience. This lead me to question the viability of my identity and aspirations outside the sequestered world of my high school years, since they had been conceived within it. Could I still be who I happily was and follow my dreams? Or did I have to be whoever I had to be and do whatever I had to do to survive in the "real world"? Unschooled in the former and afraid of the latter, I avoided answering questions I could barely formulate and lost myself in the world I had once myopically believed to be my own.

In the world beyond my parents' house, I have learned a lot. As a teenager, I invested a lot of emotional and  ideological energy against my confinement, not just to break a stereotype but again, because I didn't want to be a confined woman. That sense of rebellion became as much a part of me but so did my confinement. However, because I was in denial that my confinement defined me, I could hardly lay claim to my rebellion against it. Out in the wider world, I had to face the harsh reality that my confinement had defined me to a point of stultification in a world without forced restraints. Struggling against the identity formed in my sequestered upbringing, however, increasingly distanced me from the positive outcomes born from my confinement--my desire to grow, my sense of purpose, and my motivation.

I have to accept that, no matter what happens, a part of me will always be a girl who lived a sheltered life.