"You are a disgrace to our family!" My father once said. His words burned into my being, and I thought I would forever be scarred.
I couldn't do it. I was never cut out to do it, to be the stereotype woman my family would be proud of. I was never beautiful enough, never graceful enough, never lady-like enough, I wasn't qualified to become a honorable wife, not in my home country at least.
A lady must know how to cook, how to do housework, how to sew, how to embroider, how to dance, how to play music if possible, how to please her husband, how to raise children, but she mustn't learn how to defend herself, how to hold a sword or a bow, no, because self-defense is only for men. She mustn't ride a horse, get drunk, choose her husband, or just enjoy herself in general, for her happiness was guaranteed to be in being the typical housewife, not in having a little bit of freedom at all.
And I wasn't even asking for my freedom. I was just a total failure.
No matter how many lessons I took, I couldn't dance. I couldn't walk femininely enough. My cooking was just passable. I couldn't sew or embroider except for the most basic things. I couldn't bring myself to like my long brown hair, I have always wished to have it cut shorter, perhaps shoulder length, but surely enough that also would be considered a disgrace, and no man would agree to marry me, as if I actually cared. I don't care if marriage was a golden cage, it was obviously a cage nonetheless. the fact that the bars you were imprisoned behind were made of gold held no importance. A cage is a cage, golden or iron.
I do not consider myself to be manly. I am a woman. Just not the typical boring housewife I was enforced to become, failing in the end anyway. I am a different type of woman, a woman who wanted to stand for herself and not let others control her life. A woman who wanted to have her own personality, likings, and dislikings, not the local ones every other woman was brought up to have.
"A woman should be soft and sweet. Delicate and graceful."
well excuse me father, but I'm not exactly a delicate flower, and I don't wish to spend my life pretending to be one just so I could find a man to enslave me and make me his housewife.
I understand that even if I got to choose who I wanted to live my life with, I would still need to learn how to cook better, how to sew the most basic clothings, and how to treat my husband so that I could be worthy of him, but that way I would try to learn it with my own will, I won't be forced to do it. He'd accept me if I couldn't dance or sing, he'd accept me if I liked fencing and horse riding, he'd accept me because he married me knowing that it was who I truly am. I don't want to live a lie, to play pretend till the last day of my existence, to force the hobbies and interests of local woman onto me. I want to be myself. The free bird who I was born to be. But who in the world would accept me like that, as a friend or a lover, when my own family couldn't even tolerate me?!
I'm already 23 years old and not engaged yet, and that's considered rather late in my country.
I was so close to engagement once, to the son of a high society family, but I ruined it. I don't know what had they seen in me at first, but I accidentally spilled the tea over the table in front of them once, and damaged whatever picture they had in mind for me.
The second man who came asking for my hand was the son of a general in the army. General Kamui had once been friends with my father when he served in the army. However, his son clearly disliked me from the first time our families met and decided to back away.
That doesn't really make me feel half bad about myself. I do not pride myself for how much of a desirable bride I can be. My pride comes from who I am and what will I be able to achieve in my life, no matter how small, as long as it was my own choice.
"You're a shame to our family!" My father yelled at me as he heard of the marriage of our neighbor's daughter, Hatsune Miku, who was five years younger than me.
And so be it. I don't care. It hurts to hear it but pain enough won't change my mind, or convince me to become someone else.
"I'm really worried about you! In the end we're all going to pass away and you'd stay alone! You need a man to protect you and take care of you!"
Wrong. I do not need anyone to protect me or take care of me. I want to handle that by myself. I understand that my father really cares about me, but that's not how I want to live. But of course, I wouldn't dare speak my mind in his presence. I have done so many times before and gained nothing, except for getting myself a punishment and making my father angry, which was not good for a man his age, and in his conditions.
"I'm sorry, father." I apologized disingenuously.
" Let us see where will your useless apologies and rash actions lead you. But once you realize how much shame you have brought onto your mother and I, your sisters and your grandmother, do not come and beg me for forgiveness, do not come and ask me to fix it. You are not a child anymore! When will you grow up and become a lady?! Not the man you are. Good thing that your sisters are older than you and already married, otherwise you would have cursed them too with your recklessness and childishness!"
"I..am..a man?! So you say I am a man?!" I couldn't hide the raging anger in my voice.
"No. you are just a boy. You're not even mature enough to be a man."
"Father! Do you realize what you have just said?! I'm your own daughter! Your own flesh and blood!
"You aren't. I disown you. A true Sakine would have at least respected her elders enough to obey them." His voice was dark and firm.
I felt tears start to well in the corners of my eyes, something that rarely ever happened. My father had disowned me. I was no longer a Sakine. From now on, I was just Meiko. My family hated me enough to kick me out.
"Fine!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, successfully hiding the melancholy in my voice. I swallowed the burning bitterness of guilt before I spoke up:
"But don't come and beg me to help you when you are old and dying."
I turned my back to him letting tears stream down my face, wishing that Earth would open up and swallow me. I hurt my father who was only worried for me, and I was very sorry I wish I had died before it happened, but my pride did not allow me to apologize at the moment so I headed to my room to cry it out instead.