On Andrea

She is by no means a prodigy.

Studious, diligent, and steadfast. She learns all the rules and abides by them, picks out the norm, and slips into the rivers of society. Constantly following the current, swimming her way through society, hoping to make her way to the front. Life is a competition, and all that she wants is not to be in last place.

Prodigies, or geniuses, have it easier, she thinks. Born with the talent to thrive in their field. Not need to push yourself further to reach the top, she figures.

(She will learn this is not the case, but today is not the day. To little Andy, who pours all her might into textbooks that make little sense to her when she was a kid, whose teachers will only belittle her when she asks questions, and when her peers will only jeer with “how are you not following? this is really simple.”)

She tries obsessively, sparing no time for frivolities, to get to the top of her class. In retrospect, it means little, for primary grade is nothing noteworthy to look at, and that life will have other plans for her. But for little Andrea, this is all that she has to offer, and the only way to make it in the totem pole.

She is a person fueled by desperation, not passion. She lives in continuous fear of lagging if she stops. She puts herself in constraints and denies herself basic leisure for the sake of winning the perceived race to the top.

It’s funny how life responds to this. By ripping away the only safety net she knows, she learns that life is simply unfair. And perhaps life just likes hating on her existence. Losing her home, her right to proper education, and her mother at the young age of 8, her life is plunged into extreme uncertainty. Suddenly, she is no longer in the middle of the pack but rather drifting into last place, where the losers are. Where those who are belittled and shamed and forgotten linger. She spirals further.

And so she continues to learn each trick in the book, studies every law and every loophole to her advantage to quell the fear of not knowing and behaving poorly. And perhaps to balance the scales, and a little ‘fuck you’ to life.

(She becomes adaptable and resourceful, performative and opportunistic when the need arises. The looming pressure and melancholy only double after the loss of her previous life.)