If Only I Was Born in 3127 BCE

I never really understood what George R.R. Martin meant when he said “I have lived a thousand lives and I’ve loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time…”. As a young girl, I was always told that my imagination ran a bit too wild. I blamed it on the stories. The ones my grandmother told me when I couldn’t sleep. The stories of war and magic. Stories where women were warriors and men were scheming courtiers. Even ones that didn’t end in happily ever after. Despite my love for the American dream, for wanting the shoe to fit, it was these stories, whispered from generation to generation, that made me feel alive. Reading Maxine Hong Kingston’s version of herself as Fa Mu Lan reminded me of the same feelings, I once used to harbor towards the stories my grandmother told me.

In fact, I had made my mind up that I was going to be one of the characters in particular. The master archer Arjun from the Mahabharat. He had always stood out to me because he was the best at whatever he did. Archery, dance, strategy, but especially his loyalty to his older brother and family. He could have easily taken the throne and ruled the kingdom, but he was forever loyal to his eldest brother and instead led the armies in a war against their 100 cousins to help his brother secure his throne. That kind of loyalty put my admiration for him above any of the other, more famous people my grandmother spoke about. While the younger version of myself had been adamant to become a warrior like him, I can now see that the realities of his life and mine are far from different. It has now occurred to me that everyone fights their own version of a battle stimulated to target their weak spots and for better or worse, we have named that battle ‘life’. In the great battle of life, we face small defeats and large victories, but the war never ends. So, we all envision ourselves as the warriors we once strived to be. Those with swords, spears, and arrows, but also those with books, pens, scalpels, and words.

 

Signing off for now,

Reality Sucks

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