Pragnika Patel

I promised myself I wouldn’t look back. I did. I really did. It wasn’t in my nature to go back. I believed it was better to look forward and to begin a new chapter than to continue on with the cliff hanger. And to tell you the truth—I feel like I’m about to give you my biggest secret in the world—I was a hypocrite.

Why did I stop and look back on my past? Why did I pause to add my two cents to every memory? And why did I reflect on these events when I got older? It was like, or—rather—I was like a fine cheese that got better as it aged.

It was rather painful to admit that I paused and reflected back at the beginning. It felt wrong. It wasn’t my place to fill in the holes that were in me. I was the girl who enjoyed reflecting through other ways without the mechanism of talking. Through art and through writing I found my tools.

Yet, I was ostracized, accosted for my quiet presence and the bland aloof demeanor I presented. I couldn’t tell them I couldn’t speak my own language. I didn’t flow with others. I didn’t raise my voice. I listened. I didn’t give my opinions. I analyzed. I didn’t present. I gave research. I didn’t talk. I chose my words.

It was quantity vs. quality. My fourth-grade teacher said it was harder to dig your way out of a hole than to climb your way out of one, but it was I who dug deeper. I fumbled. I cracked. I cried. I bled. I broke. I strived to be louder. I tried, but it was hard. The voices got louder. A physical assault on my senses. There was no out. I was a cornered king. Outmatched and outgunned by my opponents. I licked my wounds and drove back into the recesses of my mind. I was the obscurity, an oddity no one tried to befriend. Rather, I was befriended out of pity.

And inside my mind, I watched. I struggled. I failed. And I grew. I silenced my heart while it screamed at me that I wasn’t shy. I was reserved. I wasn’t weak. I was strong. My mind was quiet. It was loud.

I was Atlas. I was given the world on my shoulders. I was Prometheus. I was chained to the rock to face my punishment. I was Pandora that opened the box. I was Orion. I was Achilles. I was Hamlet.

Yet, there were a few who found me, accepting me for who I am. They were extroverted in their ways, but they were my outlet. They gave me strength and encouraged me to find my own self. To define my weaknesses that I saw as my strength. And to see my weaknesses as my foundation to improve.

I didn’t realize until I learned to open my eyes and reflected back that it was all right to be quiet. That it was the quietest voice that was always the loudest.

My introversion was not a disadvantage—it was a tool. My cliffhangers weren’t an ending—they were the beginning. I wasn’t the cheese that was left to rot and to be eaten by worms. No, I was savored and enriched by the years gone by.

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