Room Writer

Recently, I started watching a series on Prime, called ‘The Middle’, that is mostly based on the nuances of an American middle-class family. The story is built around their daily struggles and complexities, comic and chaotic often, almost always with a happy ending. There is one character that I am particularly intrigued by, the middle child in the family, Sue.

Sue is hopelessly hopeful. She is an epitome of failure, yet she inspires a certain bravado. She means well, but often ends up messing things up. Her energy is infectious. Despite all her unsuccessful endeavors, she has a quality of never giving up. She is so motivated that she founded her own cheer group for the school wrestling team, the ‘Wrestlerettes’ because she wasn’t selected in any other school activity group. For the most part of the series, she is a ‘nobody’ in her school, where her classmates and teachers often ignore her or mistake her for someone else. She has to correct them constantly, which frustrates her sometime, but she always pulls through. Despite her invisibility, she has her own circle of true friends, like Brad, who she also dates for a while, clueless about his obvious sexual preferences (probably as much as Brad himself). Her cheer group friends are her own personal supporters as well. Her childhood friend, Carly, who is not invisible like Sue, often hangs out with her. All in all, Sue might seem like a lonely girl without the charm or popularity (in contrast to her brother, Axl), she is quite content in her small little world. Despite all her unpopularity, she is cherished, admired and even loved by a few people who ‘see’ her. Not to mention, Darrin, an interesting persona himself, who she dates for quite some time, that ends up in a tragic comedy of errors when he proposes her, and Sue being Sue, goes through a series of emotions and obligatory ‘yeses’ before she finally musters the courage to tell him how she is not ready to get married yet.

In one of the latest episodes that I watched, she was seen waiting to hear back from the colleges she applied to. Almost all her classmates heard back and got into college, but she either got waitlisted or didn’t hear anything. She eventually gets in, but the tension preceding that made me wonder about my own strives. I couldn’t help but think how my life is so similar to hers. I always wanted to achieve something big, inspire people with my work, be an example of greatness, but either it slipped away from my reach or it felt so unreachable. It is not a feeling of the past. I constantly feel I am capable of so much more than what I get, like I am always waiting for something bigger, something better. I have a small circle that includes my family, who cheer for me, and I always brush off my failures and get up, but it always feels like a struggle. I also get excited by small successes like Sue, but I am also aware that I might not get what I want from life. It feels like my clock is stuck, forever, like my wings are glued, like my foot is floating in a shoe two size bigger, ready to slip away. Like Sue, my growth is, in fact, invisible.

Maybe, this is what growth looks like. Maybe, I am Sue. I am Sue.