Winner Stands Small

victory isn't the same for everyone

"This Terrible Problem That Is the Sea" illustration from "Sunlight and Shade" by Frederick Barnard, 1883.

Some moments change your entire perspective on how you tend to see yourself, and I think that moment was just one of those. It all started when I moved to a new city for higher education, and the people there had a kinder attitude towards my eccentricities. I mean, not all of them, but still, some had it, and I am forever grateful for it. Maybe it was like the very warm sunlight that helps a seed germinate, and just like that, I started participating in as many competitions and events as my body could sustain. It was always fun during the participation, but the problem was the result of it, as people say the action is fine, the consequence was the problem.

With every win, my first response used to be like ”Oh what an amazing time we had during the competition,” and never “I am glad I won.“ The forceful reminiscing about the past is because the present moment always seemed too much to handle. I constantly talk about how wonderful participation feels, as I deep down wish to lose.

Every single time I lost, there is a relief down my chest along with the repetition of the words as I keep on saying to myself, “I deserved to win, I was way better than all of them.“

Over the years, I preferred to lose rather than to win because losing meant that I could have done better, and I needed to improve more. I can watch my performance again and again and decide the places that need improvement with the hope of improving them in the future. But winning meant nothing other than guilt and shame.

I have always been someone who lost most of the time, and it all started to change the moment I started winning. If I performed in a group, I could blame the curse of winning on the other participants as if I was just the one with the bandwagon, didn’t make much contribution, and hence was innocent of the crime.

This realization came to me in its full-fledged form when, a few days ago, during a competition, the judge kept on looking at my team and then announced that we had won, and I just couldn't smile and kept on holding onto a stiff face. My teammate looked at me and said, “We have won!“ and my reaction deep down was, “I would have never taken this away from someone; it’s you who did this. I would never. It’s all you.“

I am not able to remember the time when everything I held turned into a privilege, even if I earned it. At first, I thought that I was a people pleaser and that’s why I am sad and in desperate need to cry it out every time I win something, but I honestly didn’t care about my competitors because they were most time egotistical and thus pathetic and not worth a tear.

As a solo performer, every victory meant the badge of shame, and it couldn’t be helped, as I felt like someone stealing away from the one who deserved it more. Every trophy I won felt like a stolen husband from a married woman. Every victory felt like it was won by unfair means and never just and right.

One of the scenes that I couldn’t help but remind myself about was from Harry Potter and the Deadly Hollows Part 2 (I hate talking about Harry Potter as much as the next person), it was the scene in which they all go inside the vault of some villain, and trophies start multiplying and eventually start suffocating them. That scene is the one I most vividly remember cause I felt like just that every time I win. I need air, and I gasp for it more and more as I walk down the stage, holding onto it. If someone asks me to give it to them, I would give it away, just like I would give away everything if only my friends ask me for it.

That’s the scene before the room gets filled with metal trophies to the brim and starts choking them

A while ago, I got a message that revealed the winners on WhatsApp. It said that I got the first position in a creative writing competition, and all I could think was, did the judges know me? Did someone recognize my handwriting? Did all the answer sheets get burned, and was the winner decided based on a lottery system, but then again, how can I win that either, I am not lucky enough to win a lottery?

All I wrote was how an old woman can feel like an imposter while looking at her younger self, and that wasn't written in a creative or mature manner, either. My friends wrote it better; they deserved it more than I, at least that’s what I felt like. Every time I win, I have to go to every person and say all I wrote was some awful crap, which is the only thing judges love, and everything I win is highly accessible to everyone. I won cause I was lucky and privileged.

I still don’t know what exactly causes it; it may be my childhood with my parents’ failed expectations, or it may be being the youngest sibling forced to forgo everything to the elders. Or is it simple and plain self-hatred? Or is it something that lurks underneath, waiting to come out in the future in the form of my casual nightmares?

I still suffer with this a lot, but as time is passing by, I am realizing that my victories are not something that are manipulated by me in the form of some “evil means“ but something that I achieved and earned. I need to understand that “I matter.” It is not a very easy journey, but I am sure I will get out of it sooner or later.

I am learning to stand on the stage and say to myself loud and clear.

“I earned it. I earned it. I earned it. It’s mine. It’s mine. It’s mine.”

Thank you for reading it ❣❣❣❣