The mark left by the MARK conference

As the spotlights focused on me, I quickly scanned the room for familiar faces. This search proved futile and my prediction was not too wrong. Afterall, I had made very cautious efforts to not let a lot of people know that I was going to give a speech, and that too on a topic I preferred to keep very private. So what was this big speech all about, you may ask. It was my first public speaking stint in college, after a very long gap of almost 5 years (the last time I spoke in public was in 10th grade). And the topic, ‘In search of a real me’ is one I want to believe that I made some headway in, over the last couple of years. I felt that I didn’t want to speak anymore. But thankfully I remembered something and started the presentation. 

Writing this speech seemed to be a laborious task and ironically I was struggling to stay true to myself in a speech about authenticity. I went on and on about fear shaping my social interactions, only to produce absolute garbage which was again ironically shaped by my fear of rejection. This very fear of rejection probably made ‘the big speech’ a topic I shrugged off as something just for my resume, something I did not care much about. And when the organizers of the conference asked who all were attending from my side, I played the ‘international student with no family in America’ card quite effectively. Come on, who are we kidding, the ‘Im too scared to be vulnerable around people I know’ card is way too depressing to throw at someone who casually floats you a question before making a Dunkin run for the whole team. 

Considering the immense pressure I had put on myself and the innumerable midterms I had over that week, the speech went okay. It could have gone a lot worse, but it definitely could have gone a lot better too. Weeks later at a friendly gathering many of my friends would ask about the speech and I would again play the delusionally vague guy card to avoid follow up questions. But I absolutely lost it when one of my friends mentioned that they would have come if I had told them. It seemed important to them that they supported me which was a bit hard for me to digest. My fear has always made me believe that the only person I could count on would be myself, that no other person/persons could live up to that. Sometimes I found myself in dark corners and isolated nooks of rooms, finding solace in the fact that I did not let my guard down for anyone to see the real me. In my speech, I presented a more fictional story about how I had confronted my fear to be loved and accepted myself for who I was to find real joy in human connection. Fine, you can call it a lie, but the human connection part was true. I did find comfort in the randomest of interactions throughout my day. But the thought that the people I cared so much about cared about me too seemed too good to be real and too much like a fantasy for me to welcome with open arms. My fears had deceived me yet again. I was devastated and oh yes, I was on a stage with 500 people staring at me, expecting me to give a decent speech, or well do something.

When the pause before I started speaking got too long, my mind started to wander again. My mind suddenly went back to how two of my friends randomly happened to be at the conference and how I saw them at breakfast. They must be thinking I’m an absolute joke, the intrusive thoughts chided in, making me unable to start hence extending the awkward silence by another unholy 15 seconds. I tried to find them in the crowd, but the task was too much for me with my astigmatism that has faithfully been with me for almost 1/3rd of my life. Not to make things cliched, but I took a deep breath. I was happy that they were there. It was comforting. I smiled and changed the slide and there it was, a photo of my family, friends and some pictures of myself, exactly 20 kgs and 2 smaller shirt sizes ago. My breath slowed down. I was at peace. All these people, they somehow helped me weather storms that had made me think this is it for moments. They had done something incredible. They had made a person who wanted to be lonely feel less lonely. They stuck by me during days when I was more intimidating than the ghost of Christmas past. Maybe pictures and recordings would argue with this claim, but dude, I was definitely not alone on that stage that day.