someone can have another someone folded inside
The life story of one of my sisters is the most radical one I know.
She was extremely clever at school, always had the best grades. Sometimes she would ask me to do my homework, since I was barely coping; she really enjoyed studying. She loved pranks, jokes, she was most of the time very happy. She made me angry many times, but she was a good kid. One of those who are surrounded by friends. She went to university, I cannot remember if she finished her studies, she studied to become a camera technician for photography and cinema (Imagen y Sonido grade back in the day). She also traveled quite a lot, she "saw the world".
One day she joined a tablao flamenco. Which is not a strange thing in Madrid, not a place for tourist but one of those tablaos were the flamenco community who lives here gather. Now and then you can go and sit, and as long as you don't sit where you should not, and as long as you don't do palmas, everything goes right among the gipsys. They basically let you enjoy their fiesta while ignoring you.
The thing is that my sister, probably hungry for that belonging that gipsys have, did something quite unusual in our culture and even less in theirs, she became one of them. But the real shock is the role she picked, because is brutal: like she had never traveled, had never went to university, had any kind of education, had any kind of past.
She has been gone for 20 years now. I rarely see her, but when I do it shocks me every time. I recognize that face, the way she laughs, but nothing else. She loves to remember childhood, she gets super emotional about that. But she skips all the youth years of university, travelling, going out with friends. Actually, I believe her when she says she does not remember that very well. Those years do not exist anymore. She talks like shit, you might think she has not finished primary school by the way she speaks and writes.
Is she happy? She was for few years. Now she is miserable. Trapped as women can be trapped. Is part of the role she picked.
But it is true that many people not doing this radical things, and even choosing the "right" ways, are also trapped so maybe they were not right after all.