“Depression actually happens to people as often as they get headaches,” said Aysha without taking her eyes off the road. We barely moved less than one feet for the past five minutes due to the road work ahead, narrowing the three lanes to one. “It isn’t something that is so rare. People just create this negative connotation to it.” Behind her cat eye-shaped glasses, I know she was trying her best to accommodate my outburst about depression, or whatever this is, that seemed arbitrary. I slouched on the passenger seat, fitting my tiny self underneath the seatbelt, trying to get into a fetus-like position, ready to crumble.
It has been weeks since my return to the homeland where the sun hangs right above your head and the people don't always say please and thank you. I spent most of my days writing, or trying to write, which often begins with the act of typing, typing and a little of deleting, then more of typing and then even more of deleting, and swearing, then to nothing but incredible self-loathe. The farthest hope I can have at the end of the day is to only see the end of the sentence, because even wanting to see the end of a paragraph seems too ambitious.
I did take some time off from the busy Capital by going on a trip to a small island in the northwest coast of Lombok named Gili. Having in mind that this would be the fresh air, I only came to find myself standing in front of the Wondrous Sea, watching it unravelled before me, so vast and hypnotising, and felt the void was still ever present. That was the night I lost for words– even though, it's actually pretty obvious my refusal of reality. My dirty MacBook and black-leathered watch I bought in one of the independent stores in London still faithfully shows GMT+1.
2 comments :
*pukpuk*
I've been there. The counter culture shock was the worse or still is
What I did was getting away for sometimes then nurturing my jetlag and wrote before dusk.
But time always heals. Panadol helps a little.
Thanks, Dit. Hope you, or we, will feel better soon.
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