Life and Times of a Sensitive Person

There are various things people never tell you when growing up. Whether it's how to do taxes, how to make the perfect circular paratha, or how ridiculous it is to be a sensitive person. For a sensitive person, the bad things are always a little bit worse and the good things are a little too great. If for the general public, life is a roller coaster at Jamuna Future Park, for a sensitive person life is the Intimidator 305 at King's Dominion. You don't need to know much about the latter to assume its most likely more intimidating than the former. But being a sensitive person is a struggle that people rarely understand, except maybe Taylor Swift. But you'd rather not listen to her.

Your parents yell at you and you cry: If you're born into any deshi family, you're bound to have your parents yell at you frequently and be disappointed in you constantly. But these are the things that sensitive people take to heart. Even if your parents reprimand you about the time you had one more banana than you needed to, the scene quickly turns into one involving water works.  

Your friends pick on you as a joke and you cry: Whoever said friendships are built on trust and love lied. Actual friendships are built on sharing food and tearing each other down, but in a friendly way (hence the friendship). But when you're sensitive you tend to not take well to the teasing. And every time they tell you they'd stop trying to rile you up if you'd just stopped getting riled up, you wonder what their source of entertainment would be if you weren't? And then you cry. 

You watch sad movies and you cry: The only time you can ever go to the movies is when it's been months and the theatre is empty enough that a stranger won't laugh at you for crying. (The strangers laughing generally tend to worsen the crying, but you're not going to explain it to the big lady who's about to throw her popcorn at you.)

You just cry a whole awful lot: Your parents are exasperated. Your friends are exasperated. You are exasperated. But tissue paper companies are ecstatic. So I hope you can find some solace in knowing that you're bumping up the economy with the purchasing of all those tissues. Or that you're trying. That is okay, too.

The bright side of being sensitive is that there is no actual bright side. But somehow food tastes better because you're even sensitive to that.

Fatimah Akhtar is a food and fiction enthusiast with a soft spot for bulldogs. Redirect all your complaints, queries, and feedbacks to her at fatimahaakhtar@gmail.com.