The girls I am
On learning to care for my little Ramnas
I think of my inner child as a collection of Matryoshka dolls: those little wooden women of decreasing size, each nestled inside the other. I think of my younger selves—Ramna at 6, at 11, at 17—cocooned in me as I am today, at 25. I think of the moments that knock me over and open me up and leave those girls bare. The small ways I fail, every day, to protect them, and the small ways I do.
I think of them walking alongside me down the street. A gaggle of Ramnas. I’ve been thinking a lot about these girls. When I felt small the other night and my apartment felt impossibly large around me, I thought of them—what are they afraid of right now? What are they worrying will happen to me? What are they preparing me for, nudging me to notice?
It’s 7:50 in the morning. The sky is still flushed pink at the edges and I’m passing a park on my way to work. The ground is painted with orange and yellow leaves, damp from days of persistent rainfall. I walk along a path lined with several trees and their branches hover above me. Something seems to have pushed the scattered leaves off the path and now each tree has its own pile, pooling at its feet like bathwater. They look like soft, orange mountains. I suddenly want nothing more in the world than to jump in one.
How soft it must feel. How it might smell like earth and newness. How I would feel the moment before landing, feet in the air, suspended. I can feel 6-year-old Ramna pinching me from the inside, asking me to play. Asking if it’s safe to have fun, to laugh with my whole mouth, to be messy.
It’s a cloudy September afternoon. I’m soaking in the bath and the apartment is quiet. I can hear the fridge humming outside, someone walking with heavy shoes in the apartment above. I’m still new here and feeling disoriented. The streets aren’t familiar, the people are new, the cutlery in the drawer isn’t mine. I think of my apartment in Toronto, of all the things I’ve collected there, those little accessories of home: my microplane with the red handle, the cookbooks with the pages that stick together at the pie dough recipe, the wilting flowers on the table that I’ll switch out on my next grocery trip. They’re just things until you leave them, you know?
I think of my people there, how I could call them up and go over. The water has grown tepid and I can feel the hair on my legs stand up. Suddenly I am 14 again and my biggest fear is being alone and the aloneness stretches into a long and indefinite expanse before me, a bright and blinding tunnel. I am 14 again and I am afraid of being left behind, or of doing something to deserve it.
It’s the peak of the work day and I’m working on an assignment I’m excited about. It’s one of the few times since being called to the bar that I actually feel like a lawyer. Both the stakes and the reward is high — there are people who are affected at the other end, a young family whose names and stories I’ve read and reread and grown to care for. By the end of the day, their lawyer will get to give them good news, because of these words I’m putting together.
It’s just another day but it also isn’t, and it makes me love this job I worked so hard for. It’s just a job, and at the end of the day, this office and these emails are just that, but as I’m sending off this assignment, reviewed and edited to the last comma, I feel giddy. I am 18 and hungry for fulfilment and when it comes, it’s the sweetest thing I’ve tasted: hard-earned and filling and the only thing that’s truly mine.
My therapist had me print a photo of my younger self and paste it to my bathroom mirror. In this photo, little Ramna is 8 years old. She’s wearing a purple shirt, my favourite colour at the time, and two purple clips pinning back my Dora the Explorer bangs. I’m smiling wide, revealing gaps where my baby teeth have fallen, and I’m making a peace sign to the camera. Behind me in the photo is the roundabout where I learned how to ride a bike, zig-zagging onto someone’s yard and skinning my knees, hobbling back home.
When I brush my teeth in the morning, little Ramna is there. When I look too hard in the mirror, at something about my body that, realistically, only I will notice, but something I’m convinced the world will ogle at, she is there, listening. She will see when I criticize myself. She will repeat it back to herself the way kids do. She will ask “why, why, why”—she will want a reason for the way I treat myself sometimes and I will have none.
She is young in this picture, but she is also confused, and sometimes afraid, and often expected to seem older than she is. I look at her every morning and every night and these days, when I leave, I’ve been taking her with me.
It’s a normal weeknight and something is off. I’m sitting on the couch and everything is fine but I can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t. No one is around. I pull my knees up to my chin and wrap my arms around them. I close my eyes. I loosen the lid of me and reveal the second doll. Her face is painted like 17-year-old Ramna. I tell her: You’re doing good. I’m proud of you. I take the top off the second doll and reveal the third one, 11-year-old me. I tell her: You are very loved. Lonely doesn’t mean alone. I open the third doll and look into the round, smiling eyes of my 6-year-old self. I tell her: I will keep you safe. And I try my hardest.
Getting every seed out of the pomegranate. The rush of eating spaghetti in a white blouse and leaving the meal spotless. When the subway doors open right where I’m waiting on the platform, as if the train is here just to pick me up. Seeing a stranger smiling to themselves. An old couple holding hands. A toddler’s wobbly walk (especially your toddler).
Thinking about how many good books there are left to read. Reclining seats in a movie theatre. Calling out to the people you’re hosting, “dinner’s ready!” French toast with strawberries. Cinnamon in anything.
Seeing my father laugh and mean it. My mother’s lamb biryani and the extra pinch of saffron she adds when I’m coming home, because she knows I like it colourful. When Rida still thinks my clothes are cool enough to steal, even though I act annoyed. Reading Manal’s stories. Realizing how talented my baby sisters are.
Your brother. This family I chose, the family I’m building. Knowing I’ve found my forever friends. Finding a forever friend in you! Feeling myself grow. Feeling myself lean into the discomfort and do it anyway. Knowing something will be hard and doing it anyway. Oreo ice cream, with the big chunks.
Thanks for coming by, I love having you here. If you enjoyed this little love letter, I want to know! Shoot me a message on Instagram: @ramnasafeer. If you have another question or comment or sweetness to share, you can also send me an email at ramnasafeer@gmail.com. Let’s chat!
I hope you stick around. Sending love and rest,
Ramna
so good so so good!!