An insta friend created this picture and sent it across and said, “sorry, if you felt bad”. I told him I wasn’t sorry and neither should he be. And I thanked him. And I am sharing it here. Let me tell you a story. Growing up, I had no male role models to emulate. Father and figures like his were weak, ineffectual and violent. I was surrounded by women, strong, loving and dynamic. Mother. Grandmother. Aunts. Sisters. Friends. Each were to identified with and idolised. So I became them. I grappled with my own sexual identity then and wondered if I needed to be a woman to get a man. I was bullied and ridiculed because I was femme in my secondary school. And I was tormented in my 13th, 14th and 15th year of life. Until I modified my behaviour and trained myself to be more “manly”. I hid who I was and became what society expected me to be. It was tragic. As I grew and entered my own understanding of Self, I learned that people who loved me would love me as I am. People who don’t aren’t really necessary. I also grew up to be a part of a strong LGBTQ community and I understood I could be loved by a man by being just who I am. And my sexuality evolved into a comfortable space of being Harpreet. So here’s to being comfortable in either picture. Here’s to breaking down walls of feeling side-lined and unworthy. You be you. I’ll be me. So I’ll share once again a prayer I read and learned all those years ago. In my final year of college, in a bulletin board outside the Psychology department, I came across this: I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, And you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped. (Fritz Perls, "Gestalt Therapy Verbatim", 1969) Cheers! 🤘🏼💕 #faceapp # gender #gay #sexuality #growingupdifferent #rolemodel #femme #different #gaypride #gaymen #gayworld #beard #hsc285 #loveyourself #iamwhoiam (at Mumbai, Maharashtra) https://www.instagram.com/p/CB-ej1LFgdC/?igshid=2wuvn4dr8ax3
