Yesterday, I was going through my wishlist but none of them were marked as done. It was quite a long list  added at every point in life when my heart met a “NO.”

As I closed the app, something hit me. Most of the things on that list, my brother had already done them.

He never had to wait.

Never had to explain.

Never had to shrink his wants to fit someone else’s comfort.

He did what I dreamed of 

without asking,

without watching the clock,

without fearing the answer.

And that’s when I paused 

Do men even have wishlists like this?

Do they even know what it’s like

to want quietly,

to carry wishes like secrets,

to crave things so small, yet so far?

Did they ever feel like writing it down?

I still remember

Once,  I showed him a picture of a hill, a soft, green, quiet hill. I said, “I want to go there someday. Just sit and sip tea. Nothing big, just that.”

He laughed.

“You didn’t go? I’ve been there. It’s nice. Just about 30 minutes from here.”

I was stunned.

That place I had bookmarked in silence, that small dream I’d wrapped in “maybe one day” he had already done it.

Casually. 

Easily.

I thought, ‘How’?

We have the same parents.

And I knew they would never allow me to go alone. Not because I wasn’t capable, not because I didn’t deserve it, but because the idea of me out there on my own terrified them. Not out of trust in the world, but out of fear for what it does to girls who dare to step into it alone.

He just shrugged.

“Why bother to ask everything?”

And that’s when it struck me, even with the same roof above our heads, we were raised in different worlds.  We saw things differently, and we accepted the world differently.

He came with shortcuts, with silence passed off as permission.

Mine came with gatekeepers at every door not just parents, but fear, expectation, and a nameplate that read ‘Daughter’.

He walked through doors I was still knocking on.

He lived the dreams I was only allowed to write down.

Not because he was another gender but held the willpower to fight for them.

And I started seeing the differences more clearly.

Whenever he raised his voice, whenever he shouted there was acceptance. A  strange kind of respect followed his anger. I saw my parents back off and give him space.

But when I did the same, when I raised my voice, even to speak the truth, the reaction was something else. There were times I pointed out valid things. I wasn’t rude. I wasn’t wrong. But I was silenced not with words,  but with action.

Maybe because a girl who speaks too much is a problem.  Maybe a daughter raising her voice is seen as disrespect, not strength. And I have heard of it somewhere we never allow girls to talk over.

And let me ask - why do the doors close when our voices speak?

Is it because society feared too much mind, too much wisdom?

Or was it that their patriarchal pride couldn’t bear to take even two steps back?

But this ideology was affecting me too, and slowly, I learned to whisper my wants.

To fold my truths inside myself.

To smile through the sting.

To hide even my dreams in the draft folder of an app.

And whenever he fought it was a battle won. Loud, unapologetic, and still… respected.

But me?

I was always the losing soldier. Not because I didn’t fight,  but because my fight was never allowed to matter.

Every time I stood up,  I was pushed down harder.  And each time, I searched for someone to stand beside me. But I was always alone.

And somewhere along the way,  I began to forget that I had the right to stand at all. I became a soldier who didn't know she had a worth that could cross the lines drawn around her.

And then and there, my wishlist bloomed. 

It wasn’t simple, and definitely not silly. 

It felt like a firecracker sudden, bright, and full of things I had kept hidden for so long. It wasn’t cheap either. 

It was like a diamond, shaped under pressure, shining quietly but firmly.

 They were Stardust which I was fascinated by.

 I began to write down everything I had once wished for. Not because I needed a checklist but because writing them made them real. It was my way of saying: these things matter to me, and I deserve them too.

Do you know what was on that list?

To walk outside at night. Just walk. To let the breeze mess up my hair, to hum my favourite songs with my AirPods in, and not feel afraid. Not constantly alert. Not anxious about strange noises, wild animals, or worse men. Not checking behind me every few seconds. Not adjusting my dress to feel safer. Just walking, existing, breathing like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I wanted to go on a solo trip. Maybe to prove to myself that I was capable. Maybe to prove to others that I didn’t need anyone to make things happen. I wanted to plan it myself, navigate on my own, get lost, and find my way back and through it all, feel free. And maybe, deep down, I wanted to show the world that girls can do this too.

I wanted to dance in the rain, really dance, without someone calling it childish or reckless. I wanted to grab an ice cream right after, laughing with my hair soaked and my clothes sticking to my skin not worrying about who was watching. I wanted to go on a girls’ trip, stay up late, talk about everything and nothing, and just feel safe and light and happy.

I wanted to go scuba diving, to feel the vastness of the ocean around me and the silence that only exists underwater a silence that doesn’t judge or interrupt. I wanted to try bungee jumping, to feel that drop, that terrifying, thrilling moment and to howl as much as I could.

I dreamed of climbing a mountain, not just for the view, but for the ache in my legs, the sweat on my back, the quiet pride of reaching the top on my own terms. I wanted to camp in a valley, somewhere quiet and green, where time moved slowly and the world didn’t feel so heavy.

And then, I wanted something even simpler to reread that one book I loved, by lying under the open sky or beside a flickering lamp and just reading, without guilt, without interruption, without someone asking me to do something else instead.

My wishlist wasn't about luxury. It was about the small freedoms, the kind people around me did without thinking. But for me, each one was a dream I had to store away, waiting for a “yes” that rarely came.

And maybe I haven’t done all of it yet.

Maybe I’m still standing at the edge, looking at a world I’ve longed for but haven’t fully stepped into.

But I’ve stopped waiting for permission.

Because now I know my wishes are not foolish. They are fragments of freedom. They are pieces of the life I was always meant to live, not just write about.

So I keep the list. Not as a reminder of what I can’t have but of everything I still can.On my own terms. In my own time.

One day, I will walk at night, I will dive deep into the ocean, I will climb that mountain, and I will sit with that book again.

And when I do, it won’t just be about the wish. It’ll be about the girl who finally knew she was allowed to live it

I always thought 

What if the world had chosen to teach boys differently?

What if, instead of telling daughters to lower their gaze, we taught sons to raise their conscience?

What if boys were taught that no one exists for their amusement, that a woman’s body isn’t a battlefield for their entitlement, and that no part of her can be touched without “her yes “, not her skin, not her space, not even her silence?

What if boys were taught to respect boundaries as something sacred, not something to test?

What if, instead of teaching girls how to stay safe, we taught boys not to make the world unsafe?

What if we stopped locking girls inside and started unlocking the minds that cause the fear in the first place?

Because if that had been the truth I was raised in, maybe I wouldn’t have had to write down “walk alone at night” like it was a wild, rebellious dream. 

Maybe I wouldn’t have had to rehearse courage for things that should have felt natural, to laugh loudly in public, to sit at a tea stall alone, to exist without shrinking.

If the world had taught them to be better, my wishes would never have been called brave. They would’ve just been life.

Simple. Ordinary.

Beautifully, unapologetically normal.

And my biggest wish?

To have a place where every heart blooms in love not in hatred.

Where no one is told to shrink, to hide, or to stay silent.

Where everyone gets a voice, not a lock.

Where boundaries exist only between sea and land not between colours, not between religions.

A place where new flowers rise from the soil, not one where blood is spilled and silenced in the name of power or fear.

That’s what I wish for  more than adventures, more than freedom.

A world where being human is enough to be heard, held, healed and allowed to feel happiness as it should be.