Boss Girl- Not Really A Girl

By Disha Daryani

It was the first day of eighth grade and Trisha was getting ready for school. On the night prior to this day, Trisha chose to jump out of her circumstances- she had used her father’s shaving blade and shaved half of legs from her knees to her ankles. She had also shaved her arms. Her mother hadn’t noticed these developments before school the next day. As Trisha got to school, she went about her day feeling more confident but also a little conscious of her new found hairless identity. She always felt like the odd girl at school as everyone in her grade had light hair on their bodies, but Trisha had a lot of hair genetically from her father’s side on her body which always made her conscious. While it was a school for girls only, she always felt different and as she was getting to puberty she had also developed a very light upper lip which made extremely nervous. 

A few days later some of her friends noticed how half her legs had been shaved and continued to ask her if she had waxed or shaved her legs, out of embarrassment she simply shook her head and said, “no, I don’t know where they went.” Once her parents found out, her mother insisted she never use the blade again as the growth that would return would be far darker and heavier than it already existed and if Trisha wanted her mother would take her to the salon and get her legs waxed. She felt extremely cornered and fearful of the judgements and opinions everyone seemed to have and cursed herself for being so hairy. As the days passed her mother’s words came true and the hair grew back much coarser than the previous batch which only added to her dismay.

Her heavily haired body always made her uncomfortable and she didn’t like wearing dresses or if she wore them, she always felt she looked strange. During functions and annual days- her friends would look beautiful with long hair, light haired legs and earrings , Trisha always felt like she lacked in those departments and didn’t feel like the rest of them.All through school her mother had insisted she keep her hair short as it was easier to manage and also she didn’t have Trisha’s  ears pierced until she graduated from tenth grade as her mother only wanted to look out for her and told her that if she waited a few years to get her ears pierced, she could wear earrings even when she was older and not have saggy earlobes like other ladies.

A year later when Trisha noticed her friends at school had started waxing, she agreed to let her mother call the lady from the  salon home to wax. However, because of her coarse hair growth the process was extremely painful and she howled and balled her eyes out while the salon lady did both her hands and legs. This process one time in itself felt like a ride to hell and back, it built so much fear in her for the process. She only managed to try this process another three times in her life before she completely gave up on the idea of waxing. She accepted that having a hairy body would be part of her identity and while it pained her deeply she felt she had no choice as waxing was not her cup of tea. Her insecurity only seemed to grow further when she entered another school for co-education for her eleventh and twelfth grade. This was her experience of what a mean high school was supposed to be with the jocks, nerds, popular kids, other nobodies and more. It was the first time she had to interact with people from the opposite sex and also watch their perceptions of her. This school was an elite school filled with children from extremely affluent families and also celebrity kids. Trisha had chosen to go to this school because she wanted to expose herself to the best which she felt her old school could never give her and felt like a pond. This school was the ocean and her curriculum was also extremely demanding and different from an international education board. 

This school and the experience Trisha had here built enormous insecurities within her not just in terms of her physical appearance, but in terms of her social skills, her lifestyle, education and the experience in many ways helped her to define the concept of “I am not enough”. She felt a lack from every angle in her life and couldn’t hold gratitude for the blessings that did exist in her life. Being new to the curriculum, it was extremely difficult for her- there were subjects she was good at but the others were a stretch. She hadn’t properly interacted with the opposite sex before and struggled to make conversation or felt almost invisible, while she would watch the popular girls prancing around the hallways of the school alongside the most beautiful men. This would diminish her confidence as at her previous school she was amongst the “it” crowd and here she felt that identity completely dissipated. She could barely speak two words to people and only ended up making conversation with the ‘missfits’ like herself. She avoided going to school, would often skip class and spent all her time feeling vulnerable or overworking herself to simply clear through her daily assignments and tests. Her family kept motivating her to work harder but she felt she couldn’t turn to anyone to discuss her problems. 

In all of two years of high school, Trisha got invited to  two birthday parties while there were a hundred kids in the batch. Outside school she had friends from her old school who seemed to be making friends in college and getting boyfriends, she felt extremely envious and frustrated with her own circumstances and shortcomings. She kept questioning herself, why she wasn’t good enough? She felt invisible and regretted her decision to join this school. 

However unlike her friends who seemed to be enjoying college life,Trisha’s struggle actually gave her a really good education and despite not doing so well at school- the curriculum gave her immense learning and the rigor to survive university later on.She found solace in the visual arts that led her to pursue her dream of becoming a fashion designer.

Trisha with her bag full of insecurities and unfulfilled firsts along with her enthusiasm and excitement of living in Europe took off to university a year and a half after her traumatic high school experience. She felt a sense of pride knowing that amongst her friends, she was for once one of the lucky few to be stepping out on a new journey away from this city and studying fashion in Europe. She felt the stars finally shining down on her. She felt different but validated for once, because she didn’t feel she was in a lacking position.

Europe was a different adventure for Trisha- she recollects it as both the best and most difficult time of her life. She had done it all from speaking different languages to dating men internationally, having a live-in relationship to working for some of the biggest luxury fashion houses- it was a reality that had manifested in all forms.Four years of extreme training took a huge toll on her fragile mental health. Despite the immense passion she had for fashion she had failed several semesters in college after working incredibly hard. She couldn’t control her spending and spent a huge time fighting with her overly supportive and generous father over the phone about her expenses that would get spent on school supplies and food. She had to work a lot at home to cook and clean and do other chores which she was never accustomed to doing in her life back at home and she was always in a “doing” energy. She had finally found a relationship that lasted for two years and she lived together with her then boyfriend only to know it was not the fantasy she dreamed off. He never took her out on a date or brought her flowers or even held equal partnership in the relationship and she found herself being the financial support in the relationship out of constant manipulation of her fragile mental health. Her discussions with her family would indicate more often than not how her then boyfriend was not the right man for her and she would constantly be stuck in dilemma because in her mind she seemed to be doing all the right things- supporting her man, ensuring they have intimacy, living together, trying to plan dates, doing everything her man wanted,  focusing on great communication trying to even support his family whenever they would visit despite having not previously built any relationship with them yet she felt that she was not living the relationship of her dreams with equal give and take, a loving relationship. She couldn’t understand that she had become the provider in this relationship and in “doing” everything for her man she left no room for him to actually step up. She couldn’t bring out her feminine side and the connection felt more like a habit that supported his dreams and goals while her emotions seemed to be unheard. She didn’t know how to communicate her thoughts and feelings to her man in a healthy manner without being verbally violent or extremely angry because subconsciously she had only seen that in her own home between her parents as a way to cope with difficult situations.

She spent all her time between studying and working on her projects to fulfill her duties of being a girlfriend and doing errands of living in another city from banking work to visa and registration. She was always burnt out and had no time left to take care of herself neither did she know how to either. She felt she had freedom here to live her life on her own terms, however she had no independence at all under the burden of responsibilities and her active insecurities. Being a part of a prestigious fashion school, she didn’t have time to look after her appearance and would even end up with torn shoes to school every once in a while. Her life felt stressful in more ways than one. She made a few friends but struggled to cope up with them in terms of a lifestyle or simply taking time to have fun because she had to be conscious of her spending, save for her boyfriend as well and since she studied design it was a lot harder to do than a business or styling course as they didn’t require a lot of manual labor. 

After returning from Europe Trisha struggled again to settle back to the Indian lifestyle and live at home with her parents. Over the four and a half  years in Europe she had built her own system of living on her own terms and here she had to be surrounded by people at all times, give daily responses for her eating and sleeping habits or even tell someone everytime she left the house. The burdens of the past continued to haunt her as she felt like a failure to have returned back here in the same situation she had left. But to the world outside, she was a superior breed- had come back from an education in Europe. 

Her struggles continued because all she seeked was a moment to rest, but she found herself in three jobs at a time working almost seventeen to eighteen hours a day all seven days a week and her mother pushing her to do more so she could be more successful and have more money. However her three jobs in India barely covered her monthly bills and if she didn’t have the support of her family she wouldn’t be able to survive in the city. Her jobs again gave her no time for herself to care for her appearance or her body and she would eat greasy and highly caloric food to satisfy herself after a hectic work day. Her hobbies took a back seat and her social life diminished further. She would spend all her free time sleeping or with her family or hanging out with the one or two friends who, like her, had no social life. 

She would see her friends on social media having successful relationships, looking beautiful but could never understand what she was not doing right to find herself in stable environments. She felt she worked really hard but never got the results of her hard work in the way she wanted. She would cry out to her family every once in a while who would only tell her “ everyone’s life is like that, you have to work hard if you want to get somewhere in life. At the right time you’ll meet the right man and you should be financially independent- how long can we support you.” This was not the answer she needed however because she kept following this advice and it left her more alone and isolated than ever further from how she dreamed her life to be. 

These extreme working conditions would take a huge toll on Trisha’s health and after several months of constant work, she would end up being super unwell to the point where she couldn’t continue her three jobs and would end up doing nothing for months to come. This would again deteriorate her mental health, eating out of her savings and isolating herself because of her unfulfilled wishes of a different and balanced life. Nobody stopped her from taking care of herself or from visiting the salon getting her hair done or her nails done, but she never found the encouragement or the direction to do so. Her family focussed on pushing her to workout and get healthy now that she didn’t have a fulltime job but her rebellious streak  would stop her and she felt it would be a wasted attempt as she would never have a body like those other girls she envied. She felt she was cursed from childhood with being on the healthy side, short, hairy despite having beautiful features and great hair.

If she went out with her friends, she felt guilty for spending her savings or her father’s money and would sit there quietly not able to interact with other people she didn’t know because she felt no one was interested in speaking to her. The boys would not acknowledge her and she didn’t know how to approach them so many years later her insecurities had come running back from her high school days.She would feel frustrated because in Europe she had learnt to open up and speak to multiple people from different nationalities, she had global exposure yet here she seemed to feel trapped in her mental prison of timidity. Her old friends had moved on with their lives, found partners and new friend circles where they would try to include Trisha, however she couldn’t become a part of any group or make any new friendships that would last only certain acquaintances. 

She kept thinking if only she was more successful or famous on social media or perhaps if she had a great body like other girls she would have a better life and it meant she should work harder on her profession and get more successful so people would be interested in her. 

Then came a time when the world faced a pandemic,but right before it hit Trisha had a brief romance with a special man she met through a dating application. She frequented the applications because unlike her friends she never met a man directly in real life with whom she built a connection. This man turned out to be someone who was visually her type and didn’t come from the same city. She felt delighted in knowing that because she felt he wouldn’t be like the men from her city and would be open to a relationship. Just as she had anticipated he was extremely kind and loving and very quickly they formed a bond. Her desperation to form a new relationship made her wear rose coloured glasses and develop an intimate bond with this man early on in their relationship. She felt so comfortable with him, she completely dismissed the red flags until he abruptly tried to ghost her.  She still kept chasing him because in her view anything worth having meant hard work and when he pulled back she took it as a cue to pursue him further while he continued to pursue other women who Trisha learnt about through external sources. She felt shattered, isolated as the pandemic had hit already but continued to reach out to him in the hope that he would choose her. Her friends only kept telling her how he wasn’t the right man for her, but the moments they spent together meant a lot to Trisha and she wanted to feel emotionally secure and wasn’t used to giving up.She took it as a challenge to ensure he would give in to her, but the further she tried the more he seemed to drift away leaving her anxious, vulnerable and in severe need of therapy. 

Trisha had applied her “doing the work” mentality towards relationships as well because she never learnt how healthy relationships are built or how a relationship should be built between a man and a woman. Through the pandemic when she realized therapy couldn’t help her and her family and friends seemed to have no answers either that would satisfy the addiction she felt for this man- she went on a new journey. 

She learnt about how each of us carry masculine and feminine energies despite the genders we identify with and as individuals we must learn when to harness which energy. 

This learning helped her to find solace in understanding how her life was dominated by her masculine energy and  her feminine energy remained wounded with all the baggage she had held onto from her primitive years.She understood that in chasing the man, she actually drove him further away because men fundamentally need to do the chasing and women need to do the receiving for the balance to be present in a relationship. While she felt this was an archaic way of living especially since she disregarded gender specific roles, the science behind the theory instilled how masculine men need to provide and protect for them to feel masculine and women need to receive the love and material support to feel more soft and feminine. This theory also states that it doesn’t make the man stronger and the woman weaker, but creates a sense of fulfillment and balance of the polarity between the two genders. She couldn’t understand how she had been oblivious to this concept her entire life, however she felt a sense of gratitude to have finally found a guiding principle that would make her life simpler.

Her pain of separation from the man she believed she loved made her dive deeper into masculine and feminine energies which even explained to her about her job where she worked really hard but never received the success she dreamed about. Money and love are both associated with the feminine energy and while the art of working hard is a masculine concept, it can only flourish with the feminine essence. She realized that over working without breaks or taking time for herself only kept her in the masculine energy and gave no time for her beautiful and nourishing feminine energy to take form. The feminine energy is a creative energy and the masculine energy she learnt was a more analytical and business oriented energy which meant that business without authenticity and creation would not flourish and so her attempts all this while remained futile. Despite being a highly creative individual in the chase of success she failed to create which only diminished her light.

Through the two years of the pandemic and being stuck at home, Trisha learnt a lot more through books, articles, podcasts and youtube videos about the polarity. She learnt about how the women she envied simply had a better balance of the feminine and masculine energies and automatically were able to attract relationships , success and fortune to their lives. She learnt the difference between communicating from the masculine energy and communicating with a man through the feminine energy which would naturally align a man to fulfill his masculine traits around her. 

This girl who had managed to work with the biggest names in the industry, was consulting businesses to make a place for themselves but was not able to get a bunch of roses finally understood where she lacked the awareness and education in her life. 

She learnt what it meant for a girl to have both a career and a successful relationship, to have success yet have the freedom and she envisioned a future where she would build that for herself. She forgave herself for not being the woman she could have always been and for not having the experiences or life she wished for and allowed herself to take on a new journey that would facilitate this experience for her. 

As time passed she realized how hyper independence and hyper masculinity are integrated into the lives of urban women today when she would hear some of her single and successful friends speak about how they can’t find a man or how they want to focus on their careers so they can’t have love in their lives. Trisha understood that it was not a  choice of this or that, it simply meant an understanding of the equilibrium and where to enhance which energetic side of our personality. 

Trisha’s journey has been transformed, while she is still celebate and working hard- her awareness and understanding push her to take a break every once in a while even if people around her don’t understand. She takes care of herself, engages in massages every month, takes a trip to the salon for regular maintenance which makes her feel more soft and feminine.She also has invested in a laser treatment for her body hair which is not painful like waxing or makes her skin coarse like shaving and is happy to have found these alternatives. She consciously eats a more refined diet and tries to workout or go for a run as often as she can to maintain her peace of mind. Along with that, she is slowly molding the way she communicates with prospective men and she is seeing results in the way they treat her. She hasn’t received those roses yet, but is convinced that very soon she will find the relationship of her dreams and this time she will be able to bring her feminine essence to the table which will bring a sense of fulfillment to both her partner and herself.

By Disha Daryani