Reclaiming the lost years

These questions are coming to me lately: “Why did you do this and that?” Why talk to them? What new obsession grips you now? Why be a busybody?” Well, the answer is I’ve lost around three years in pitch-black darkness, a hazy maze with no exit. Good days were books, movies, games; the rest were sitting motionless on the sofa, from sunrise to orange sky. Alone, yet eyes were on me, alone, yet threats lingered. A slight pain was chronic illness; movement, a capital punishment.

Oh, don’t speak of outside. Trapped on a crossing bridge, too afraid to look down, sweating buckets on elevated roads, breathless in elevators. Flights booked but never boarded, hysteria at airport check-ins. What was I thinking when I couldn’t feel safe at levels above the ground floor? 

Nearly a thousand hollow days, lost interest in all I held dear: football, manga, café hopping, friends. Scared of dying painfully, lost the joy of living, hoped life would end in a blink. Soul and body separated, grounded only by inflicted pain.

 So when you ask what I’m doing now, I am reclaiming lost years, my golden age, feeling the sunshine’s heat, pitter-patter bringing joy. Seizing the moment, fulfillment, small achievements, failures, irritable stress, understandings, disagreements, overwhelmingness. Every feeling that makes life worth living, once again.

Jiji Lubis is a journalist, news editor, and columnist based in Jakarta, Indonesia. An occasional hermit with seven cats, she writes poetry as a therapy for her prolonged mental health battle. Her poems have been by *82 Review, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, Messy Misfits Club, and Raven Muse Magazine. Her Instagram is @ink.trospective.