Educated

by Tara Westover

He’d seemed to say, “First find out what you are capable of, then decide who you are.”

“She was just a cockney in a nice dress. Until she believed in herself, then it didn’t matter what dress she wore.”

Of the nature of women, nothing final can be known. Never had I found such comfort in a void, in the black absence of knowledge. It seemed to say: whatever you are, you are woman.

If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now. What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon; it was me.

But vindication has no power over guilt. No amount of anger or rage directed at others can subdue it, because guilt is never about them. Guilt is the fear of one’s own wretchedness. It has nothing to do with other people.

You could call this selfhood many things. Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity. Betrayal. I call it an education.

We are all more complicated than the roles we are assigned in stories.