I don't want to be happy anymore. I am done chasing dopamine and serotonin. I just want to feel whole. I just want to eat, sleep, go to work, return home and do it all over again for days after days and never feel a thing. It is okay if I don't feel happy anymore. I just don't want to feel empty again, that sudden wave of anxiety, sadness, and foreboding that consumes me when I am alone. I don't want to turn off the lights at night and then stare up at the ceiling thinking why I am never enough for people, and why everyone can just easily choose someone over me...why they can never hurt them but can hurt me, and why I always, always, always lose everything like sand flowing through my fingers.
Most people that I have met in life have found my name intriguing, enigmatic or colloquially what you call a 'jaw-breaker'. Therefore, much to my dissent, my name got conveniently shortened to 'Shreya' or 'Shrey'. It irked me majorly because 'Shreya' is also a different name within the Bengali culture. It felt like an imposition of a person or personality that I were not. Over a period of time overstimulation forced me to accept the fait accompli until, a friend started using the word 'Shree' to address me affectionately. Intuitively, effortlessly and organically I felt like my personality fell in perfect symphony with being called 'Shree', so much so that, subconsciously, I also had started to address myself as 'Shree' soon afterwards. Needless to say, the shift in cultural paradigm as I immigrated from India to USA was vast and diverse. Surprisingly however, it made me cling on desperately to the vestiges of my roots and identi...
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