Properties of Water (and Me?)

By Teeya Doshi

In second grade, we’d learnt about the three states of matter: how water is the one that takes the shape of its container. We learnt it again in fourth grade, sixth and finally again for what might’ve been the last time in freshman year of high school buried in the kinetic theory. 

 Water takes the shape of its container. 

Somehow that line stuck and struck me in a way I didn’t expect it to; water- the most powerful force in the world- still submits with no resistance. It wasn’t fair; why should the shape of it depend only on the container people wanted it to fit into? Why couldn’t it decide for itself? 

On random nights at 3 a.m., I wonder if water sometimes tries to fight back. Like the ocean during a tsunami- angry, wild, furious for having to live this way. Only to decide that maybe it’s best if it stayed in its container. 

 After all, everyone prefers the calm ocean to the angry one, no one gets hurt that way- if it just fits in. 

 Water and I have that in common, it’s always a cycle of adapting, of letting others set the pace, trying to live up to their expectations. Of making the perfect version of me that they have in their heads come to life. Let them hold the steering wheel while I’m stuck in the backseat begging for their validation. In some cases it’s a good thing. People like me, I’m the one no one has to worry about. I’m the one who’s smiling when all I want to do is scream. Fixing things I never broke. 

 Adapting. 

Apologizing. 

Taking the higher road. 

The one who never needs anything. I’m the perfect girl, just like water- harmless, helpful and essential. The kind of thing no one notices until we’re gone. Sometimes our nature becomes our greatest asset, other times it becomes our greatest enemy. I despise the girl I turn into when other people get involved. Loathe how much I care. How willing I am to ruin myself just for their praise, their validation.

But I need it no matter how fleeting or temporary it is, I need it to fill that bottomless chasm inside me constantly reminding me that I will never be enough. I’ve got no innovative mind that’s going to revolutionise the world. I’m not winning any Olympic gold medals. 

 All I can really do is try. 

I learn the dimensions, the volume, the area of my container, and then I take its shape, because that’s the only thing I’ve ever known, the only thing I can do to make people stay. 

On the worst days it terrifies me. 

How easy it’s become for me to just adapt, change my opinion, put on a fake smile and act like it never mattered. To laugh at jokes that dig under my skin. To say ‘I’m fine’  like it’s a chant. Honestly though, I’m tired. I don’t have the energy to fight and stand my ground the way solids do. I can’t  keep slipping through the cracks the way air does. 

 Being like water has become one of my properties too, and I don’t know if I can unlearn that. 

By Teeya Doshi