Wandering in Her Shadows

Sometimes I wish that girl had learned how to express herself instead of holding everything in.
She swallowed her sadness and kept it in her throat until it felt like she would choke on her own emotions.
She locked her anxiety in her stomach, where it twisted her insides.
Her fear spread through her whole body and settled in her joints, making every part of her ache.

When all the medical tests failed to explain my chronic pain, they used a word: psychosomatic. Trauma-induced.
Maybe they were right.

I know I’m carrying this trauma. I’m not blind to it.
I understand the psychology, the explanations, the theories.
But knowing isn’t the same as escaping.
Sometimes it feels like my mind doesn’t want to let it go, as if the pain is familiar and keeps pulling me back.

My therapist once told me to write it and then rewrite it.
She said, knowing what I know now, I should speak to the child I once was.
So today, I’m trying.

I was 12 or 13, a timid girl who always stayed behind the curtain.
Every year during the school anniversary, the bold kids volunteered for plays, dances, and songs.
Every year, I hid.
But I still envied them rehearsing on stage, laughing, belonging.

That year I didn’t volunteer, but I also didn’t run away.
So the teacher chose me.
A gentle man with a soft voice who encouraged me patiently because he could see how nervous I was.
He cast me as Krishna in Krishna Tulabaram.
We practiced for weeks.

A week before the show, I was terrified.
More than terrified, I was desperate.
I prayed quietly for the play to be canceled.

Two days before the annual day, the teacher was killed by Naxalites.

Shock. Sadness. Confusion.
And for a fraction of a moment, relief.

Then guilt. Heavy and irrational and punishing, settling in me like a stone.
As if my tiny prayer, my childish fear, had caused the tragedy.
As if I had some hidden power to make terrible things happen.

I knew even at that age that it was irrational.
But knowing didn’t stop the feeling.
The guilt crawled into my thoughts and stayed for years like a shadow I couldn’t shake off.

If I could rewrite that moment, I wouldn’t arrive with perfect words.
I would simply sit beside that trembling little girl, hold her hand in mine, and whisper the one truth she needed until it finally reached her frightened heart:

“It’s not your fault. It has never been your fault.”

I would let her cry without guilt.
I would show her that sadness has many shapes and she didn’t know them yet.
I would tell her she hurts because she feels deeply, and feeling deeply is not a weakness.
It’s the part of her that survives everything.

I wish she didn’t have to hold so much alone.
I wish she had someone to teach her how to let things out before they turned into pain.

Maybe this writing and rewriting is how I start teaching her now.