An unpretty day

I wasn’t always fluent in English like this. English is my second language. When I was small, I remember my English teacher in my first school taught me one line “May I speak in Nepali?" And that’s it. I had memorized it by heart. Then I got transferred into a school where Nepalese including some foreigners used to study. Everyone used to talk in English all the time at that school. One time a teacher asked me some questions but then little me didn’t know anything so I used this line taught by my previous teacher. When I asked the same question my then teacher replied in a loud voice saying No. So, I kept quiet the whole class because that was the only thing in English that I knew.  With hurdles and guidance, and repeating and reiterating and understanding, I was fluent in a year or two after I had begun studying in that school. While I was studying there, I heard a word called “ugly” for the first time. I didn’t truly know what it meant. It felt like it meant tall because in my language “uglo” means tall. But when I heard it for the first time, I heard that from a boy pointing out to someone sitting with disgust. Surely it doesn't mean tall when someone else is sitting. Then the whole students at the table took turns making disgusting faces and hurling remarks. Out of curiosity I asked what the meaning was. They laughed. But from my guesses, I could understand it was the opposite of beautiful.  Then, I got transferred to another school where we would speak pure Nepali. It was refreshing. And with the help of my teachers who taught me the basics of grammar of English, and writing essays, I slowly could for the first time articulate in words. I worked hard. Then I won competition after competition in English from essay writing, to oratory, to paragraphs, to drama, to story, to spelling year after year. I would get books as gifts and would read them in my free time. Slowly I got introduced to English literature and fast forward to now where I predominantly study medicine where I don’t need perfect grammar or perfect vocabulary, I feel like I have good enough skills to ponder and articulate how I feel. I feel, like my own native language Nepali, English is also another beautiful language. It is shameful how people are made ashamed of and made fun of, when they don’t know or can’t read in english. But what I do believe is that English is just a mean of communication. The more we use it, the more we will know it. And I believe whatever we speak, in whichever language we do,  the voice of our heart is expressed even without words, grammar, or knowledge. Like how we used to do in ancient times. Communication is not just there saying words to fill in the void, or to fill in the awkward silence between conversations or said in reaction to external stimuli but it is there to express how we feel from within. And if we truly feel from heart, our feelings will flow naturally without barrier, even in silence. From heart to heart. Words and sentences are just the means. The vehicle, our heart.  

As I sit in my chair thinking to myself again at this late hour, the very heart that I am talking about now feels heavier and disturbed. I never liked this word “ugly” from the very first time I heard it and from the very faces they made while uttering it. But to my surprise, I came to a split second conclusion right now that today was rather an unpretty day for me instead of an ugly. How? Because I was feeling disturbed, distracted from my goals all day. To myself, knowing how much I could do in a day, I couldn’t do that much today.  I don’t know how time went but I couldn’t achieve things I thought I could. I was distracted. It wasn’t unknowingly but I knew but I couldn’t do things the way I had intended to. The more I write, the more it doesn’t make sense, does it? But see, this is how I felt entirely all day. In that sense, in how I felt, it felt an unpretty day to me. I wouldn’t again say ugly but maybe unpretty. But then I again remember those very faces and said to myself, how is feeling my own emotions ever unpretty? Is my emotions, be it sad or happy, really unpretty? Do I need to be happy all the time? Can I just have moments where I am unhappy, disheartened, dissatisfied, frustrated? What could be so unpretty about feeling emotions? Why should we run away from it? Why should we abandon it? Doesn’t all of this make us, us?  Am I only defined by my goals or my success? Is our life only measured by the satisfaction, happiness but not disheartenment or discontentment? Does living life mean we should never ever feel sad at all, hurt at all, anger at all, guilt at all, regret at all, longing at all, distracted at all? No. Our feelings, our emotions are never unpretty at all. They are real. They are pure. They make us, us. And after all, how could anything as real and pure as this be unpretty at all? 

Even in sweetness and bitterness, every taste blends to give our world an earthy feeling. Light can’t exist without darkness. Day cannot exist without night. While we always aim for happiness, we must remember, it comes in pairs with his friend “melancholy”. They dance rejoicing, completing each other. We may separate them but like yin and yang they come together because they can’t exist in isolation. If we were to be happy all the time, maybe we could never relate to each other. When we could feel hurt, it means we could also feel pain of our own and of others. We would know how to respond, how to feel and to thrive even if the feeling was painful, we learn life is like that and will focus and continue more on living.  So, feeling our emotions, should never be unpretty. After all, how could anything as real and pure as this be unpretty at all? 

Thus, it was never an unpretty day or an unpretty feeling or unpretty emotions for me also. They are just pure emotions. Pure. Waiting to be heard and understood. Not judged and thrown. So, perhaps it was never an unpretty day because nothing of it could be unpretty ever. The emotions, the thoughts, the messages and the very heart itself. :)