So many days ahead of me.

I am merely a student in a crowded school, where popularity is key to success in making friends, where studying is the path to a good future, and where many put on a pretence through these processes.

I am a friend.

What do friends do? 


Be there for the people who consider me as their companion. Listen to them while they tell me of their struggles, their lives at home, the many complaints they have about certain experiences. Accompany them in the cafeteria. Lend them a pencil when they forget their stationery. Buy them tiny little trinkets for their birthdays. Make them happy.

I am supposed to get something in return, am I not? Aren't friendships bonds, too? Both parties are supposed to contribute to the relationship to keep it running, am I right?

I have to put on a constant smile for my other friends and tell them I'm all right, so they can be assured that I am not shaken by their troubles and confide in me bravely.

I am a student.

What do students do?

Study, study and study. Learn the ways of formulae and how they work, apply them to problems that are written in firm, black ink on the pristine paper, then try to use them in our everyday lives. Learn the ways of analysis, thinking out of the box and inferring from blocks of words that are meant to tell a story, tell a situation, tell an event.

There is also the learning of coping with the many expectations one may face as a student. With great grades come greater expectations. One may say that the only expectation you have to fulfill is yours, and as long as you do your best that's all that counts, but are parents', friends' and teachers' expectations going to disappear magically just like that?



No.

No, they aren't.

So I try to smile and nod at the expectations everyone sets me. Tell them, yes, ma, yes, pa, yes, Madam, yes, sir, I will do my best to reach these goals. Be the fine student that earns everyone's respect and recognition.

I am a child.

What do children do?

Grow, develop and learn. Although, of course, these processes have to be sped up, because many people believe in a fast-paced society that waits for no one, and as I grow, I see that is true. So, before I can truly begin to understand the workings of things around my environment, and me. I am pushed into a nursery to begin my adventures in learning essential things like counting and spelling.

Later on comes the responsibility of showing care for my parents and interacting with them. If they are unwell, I have to take up the duties of a filial child and take care of them in the tough war against the nasty pathogens.

At dinner, gatherings and family time, I have to spill whatever is in my mind to them, tell them about the workings of school, and laugh with them about the stories at their workplaces.

I am an elder sister.

What do elder sisters do?

Take good care of their siblings. Make sure they aren't throwing up anytime soon or causing trouble around the house. Make sure they don't fall into the wastepaper basket or crawl into the washing machines or up on the windows. Make sure they don't break anything.

Be a good role model for them. Set an example, do the good things around the house to teach them the proper ways of doing things, being polite, having manners, how to behave in various situations.

Be their friend. Again, listen to them when they need someone to talk to, give them a shoulder to cry on, let them vent their frustrations on their sister's ears. Lend them whatever we have that they don't, keep up with their mischief, laugh along with them when they do something funny.

I am a stranger.

What do strangers do?

Do whatever they are doing in a public setting. Be polite, smile, don't create a fuss in the middle of nowhere, don't act like a creep, don't intrude on others' privacy. Strangers do not know who other strangers are, so there is minimal contact, minimal communication.

I take on many roles.

What do people with many roles do?

Create masks.

There are many occasions for different interactions as various roles. Switching roles in life is exactly like switching roles in between scenes in a play - pulling away the costume, veil or mask that indicates who you are and where you stand in the play before putting on a new set to go for a new scene as a new role.

Putting on a different set of clothing each time I change roles is, to be honest, a habit. I don't show the same set to my parents as I do to my friends, nor to fellow strangers and younger siblings.

There are different pieces to a set in costuming, and it is the same with roles in everyday life. There are aspects of a side of me I show to my friends - the supportive, caring, laughing, cheerful, loud - which I do not show to strangers. I do not treat strangers the way I treat my friends. It is entirely different.

There are so many details in each costume I wear, I forget who I actually am.

This feeling is akin to acting in a play and getting too engrossed in it - switching between roles, getting too attached to a few of these roles, sticking to it so much that one forgets who they actually are in real life, when they are not on the stage where people see them as them.

Sometimes, I try to search myself to find the costume that was once me, me as a whole, me without the roles and costumes and props that doll me up.

I can't find it, though.

It is like I have infused into these roles, switching between them so easily, I forget to keep what is most important of me in the process. I am too attached to my roles.

My parents say, "Be yourself," but I can't, because I don't know how to be myself in front of people I care so much about.

My friends say, "Be yourself," but I can't, because I don't know how to be myself in front of people who laugh with me, confide in me, treat me as their pillar of support.

My siblings say, "Be yourself," but I can't, because I don't know how to be myself in front of people who look up to me as a role model, whom I teach and cultivate as a sibling.

It is an instinct to pull up my costume and switch into a role whenever faced with the situation, be it in front of my parents, with my friends, in class or anywhere else.

Who am I, really?

What is my purpose, other than to switch between the countless roles I have?

Who exactly am I underneath all these masks, all these costumes, when I am truly me? 

 Who am I when I am separated from the costumes I have grown so attached to I forget what I am truly like?

Who am I?

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One of the pieces I submitted for a creative arts programme.