Set You Free (CANEM)

Günlük Girişi Bir: Erkenci Kuş

Merhaba, my name is Sanem.

I'm in my early twenties and I live on the outskirts of Istanbul in Turkey. I've been brought up in a fairly poor community but I didn't really mind through my childhood. My family, which is made up of my parents - Mevkibe and Nihat, and then there is my older sister Leyla.

She was always the successful one in my household. Well, in the eyes of my mother of course.

We uphold traditional values in our community as most conservative areas do in Turkey. To break it down, women take on the conventional roles of childcare and home maintenance. There are strict gender roles. And with that comes the rules for girls like me to follow. Rules like abstinence, staying single until marriage and keeping no secrets from family. If there was a potential suitor for me, they must be introduced to the family very early on.

If you did not want to follow that route in life, many women headed to the city to either work or get an education. that's where the money is, that's where the success is. For an age, I didn't realise how stark the difference was between people like me and the business class inside modern Istanbul.

How naive I was.

I had never even travelled far from home my entire life.

We didn't have the money.

My family owned a small shop down the street from our house and that was all we had. It sold the staples of everything the neighbourhood needed. Bread, sweets, papers, cleaning supplies. It was what kept us afloat for a long time.

After realising it didn't make enough money for our rent and wanting her own independence, my older sister Leyla went into the city for work and finally got a job in advertising.

That's where our story begins.

My mother was so proud. She was always the high-achiever between us. In school, she got high grades and was well-liked, despite her authoritative demeanour. I guess that was what made her so successful as an assistant in her workplace.

On the other hand, I've always been creative and open-minded. It has a tendency to get me into trouble sometimes. It makes me clumsy, tactless and naive. Compared to my sister, I can't really cook, drive or do traditional tasks that a workplace would want. Usually, if I want to follow a hobby, I can be triumphant but not when I work for others.

I have my own interests.

I'm a great writer. I truly enjoy it. I can imagine myself writing in Galapagos, a place I've wanted to go to my entire life. I saw it in a magazine when I was younger and it caught my interest. Ever since then, I've had a cutting of the magazine up in my bedroom to remind me of my goal. I don't need it though, because I can remember everything about that article off by heart.

That's another thing.

I'm really good at remembering things. I was told by doctors when I was little that it's something called a "photographic memory". Whatever it is, it helps when I work or do tasks for the shop.

What else? Ah, evet. I also enjoy making perfume for myself. That's something that has followed through my family from my grandmother but my sister doesn't really take to it. She's more analytical whereas I relish new hobbies. To sum up, I find wildflowers and I press them, getting their scent into a liquid form. It's an artisan craft in Ottoman culture.

You would think my strengths would make my parents happy, but not really.

They just want the best for me and sitting by myself in the shop really doesn't fill my life with prospects.

And that's where the issue began.

-

It was just an average day when I was writing in the shop. Like the early bird I am, I was up at the crack of dawn, before the sun had even risen and opened the shop for my parents as they're getting older. I walked up to the store and the sign - "Leyla Bakkal". My parents named the store after my sister when I was little. despite any feelings of jealously, I smiled and went about my daily life.