Last week a professor assigned us a final paper on the topic of what we think folklore/folklorists can do to add to the study of health and illness. She assigned us to use only one single keyword that we think is fundamental in folklore studies to be a center of this paper. I choose the word "marginal".
I said I choose this keyword because I have long been interested in the marginalized people. I know folklore could let us know how life at the margin is configured and a study of expressive culture would eventually help get rid of the stereotype of marginality. I, however, didn't told her that another reason I choose this word is because it is me. I always feel that I am the marginal.
In my life, I have never been popular. I don't have many friends. I don't talk much with people I don't know well or don't like. I hate being people's attention. I am reserved. I do weird things. I tried hard to be loved and cared by everyone then I failed, so now I learn that to be someone else just to please people is exhausting and I will never do it again. I like observing people. By being at the margin, I know I will not be easily noticed while I can easily notice everyone else. And that is the perk of being a marginal.
I had been regretted being marginalized when I was younger. I struggled too much to make friends, to be friendly, to be normal, to socialize, to pretend to be gregarious. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be loved by everyone. Right now, as I grow old, I know more about myself and my needs. I know that the more I try, and even the more I succeed, I will still not be truly happy. Now I know what I love. Now I know where I belong.
A cohort told me yesterday how bad she felt as she was not included in a group of students. She told me how hard she had tried to find acceptance but it still didn't work. I then told her that I didn't give a f***k. I told her I didn't mind being out of attention and I choose not to be. She told me she think she was not good enough for them, so she couldn't fit in. She had a hard time at school. She struggled with schoolworks. She thought she was so behind. I told her she was good enough for everything, comparing to me. She then felt bad to make me think that I was not good enough. She came to hug me with hopes to comfort me. But she got me wrong.
She was wrong. I didn't feel anything when I was saying that. I didn't intend to say that I'm not good enough. I'm always good enough for myself. I just wanted to let her know that whether good or bad, everything depends on her mind. She is smart. She is a native English speaker. She has prior knowledge in our field. She is sponsored by the department. --- I was a foreigner. I struggle with language barrier. I take much longer time to read those books. I take ages to write papers not because I don't know what to write but because I'm not that good at writing in academic English. I have a hard time in class. I have to deal with loneliness and cultural differences in this country while all my beloved people are in a home country far away from here.
I seem to be so inferior, so behind, so strange, so incompetent. But if I don't let myself be, I will not be. While if she thinks she is, then she is. Simple as that.
What I wanted to tell her is that no one can let you be anything if you don't let yourself be. I just wanted her to look at me, a foreign girl who seems to have nothing comparing to her. But that girl is still okay. That girl can be happy living at the same position as her--the margin. That girl chooses not to let herself down just because of not being loved by everyone. But she is loved by many people whom she loves, and that is enough. She is missed back home. She has a family and friends waiting for her. She struggles but she endures and she survives. And that is SO enough for someone to be able to see herself as being good enough.
Whether choosing or being assigned, life at the margin is not that bad. I just want to let her know.
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