From Your Diary: Akshaya Iyengar

Forgiveness?

When I think back to my teenage years I see a slurry of long nights, feelings of inadequacy seeping into the days, and stretches of unhealthy coping mechanisms to try to stay afloat. To my South Asian immigrant parents, I was being difficult. To my teachers and peers at school, I was being too set on the impending future. To my friends, I was being me, a neurotic type A. 

But to myself, I was losing control of what is supposed to be the most lighthearted and simple period of life. 

When I listen to stories of young women, dealing with the same struggles I once faced, I often think about the fact that coping is the only way to push forward. Whatever that means to an individual. I’ve heard of coping with long meditative runs, drugs, and a slew of men.

However you choose to cope, you end up landing in the cushy part of your early twenties. A period where the unknown becomes uneasily comfortable, like a mattress that is too dense. It surprises you how suddenly it becomes your new normal after a few months. 

It becomes easier because you know better. You know that shit doesn’t have to last forever. The emotions never go away. You learn to cope, you learn to let go, and you learn to heal. 

Then one day, you wake up and you beg for time to reverse itself so you can tell yourself that you don’t deserve to hate yourself so much at 16. You wish you can shake that girl and tell her that this is life. The good, with the bad, with the ugly. But you can’t. 

So those nights I wake up in the middle of the night, itching to go back, I give myself forgiveness for ‘those’ years. I give myself patience. I give myself resilience. I give myself hope for the future. 

I forgive, but I don’t forget.

- Akshaya Iyengar