My Great Escape

When the burden of the conversation became too great, I quickly made the necessary excuses and ended the call, allowed the tears to dampen my face—and it seems my spirit—for only a moment longer after that. The darkness of the night blanketed me in more ways than one. I was in a foreign country where I didn't speak the native language, with foreign people who didn’t understand me much. That thought was acceptable to me though. That’s been mostly the tune of the song that is my life. This is exactly why I was here all by my lonesome on one of the Thousand Islands. It was small enough for me to walk its perimeter in a couple of hours. There was a beautiful feeling in that realisation. It was only the beginning of an illustrious rap sheet of mental health (I use the phrase sarcastically of course). The depression had already started and the social contracts that dictated normalcy were becoming harder with each passing day. I put the phone where I couldn’t hear it any longer, took my shoes off, and started walking the length of the beach.

The sand on my feet against my wheat-ish complexion looked even whiter, if that was even possible. Sleep had reached my eyes, but not the mind. I chose to align with the later. The waves against the shoreline were playing a melody. I could almost hear a pattern in it. There’s the chorus again. Can you almost hear it? I let the sound and the wind curve around my existence and move with me, or was I moving with them? My hair hung loose and was being swept across my face, shoes were still in my hand, mechanical steps leading me along the beach, what a wonderful cliche I’d become. I laughed at the very thought. There wasn’t much movement inside my head though the more the wind swirled around it. Maybe it was slowly wearing away the darkness that was swelling within; didn’t give enough time for it grow. I let it.

This is why I was here, all by my lonesome. Wasn’t it? I needed to escape from my world for a little, just a little while away. It was as if putting an ocean between me and the source of all my worries allowed me to breath. Sipping fresh coconuts while sitting on bare white sand might have helped too. It didn’t matter that there was no resort on this island, no english-speaking shopkeepers, no proper plumbing even, for that matter. I had learned enough words of Indonesian to order mie goreng (fried noodles) and could point to the guy who had his bamboo-made shack always stocked of fresh coconuts to give me one. That seemed to suffice, wouldn’t you say?

Each step, backed by an orchestra of nature, made me feel lighter and lighter. My legs had started to mimic my eyes too now. I could feel my weight harder to carry because of how tired they were. I saw a makeshift hammock made of fishing net. You could easily find these all around the island and it would also be a frequent sight of a woman lulling her child in one. This one, as luck would have it, was empty. Then again, they mostly were at this early in the morning. I slowly lowered myself in it only to let go of my weight right at the end and felt it sag underneath it. Shoes still in my hand, I had it rested against the edge of the hammock. Then I let go, loosened my grip on my handbag too, and let it fall where it may. It just fell right next to my weightless body.

Nothing moved and I knew in that moment that was all I needed . To be around myself, for myself, to fix myself, no matter what anyone back home thought of it. I can’t live my life like that. In a constant rush to please everyone. I never wanted to hurt my loved ones but there were asking me to change everything that made me who I am. In that moment, I knew that it was okay to put myself first sometimes, something that became harder to be sure of later on, but in that moment, I was. The dotted night sky reminded me of the song “sky full of stars” by Coldplay. The lyrics came naturally to my lips and I added it to the melody that was already being so beautifully played around me. I didn’t want to close my eyes to that act of the play. What if I couldn’t come back to it again? I stayed there in hushed sounds with a hushed mind.

How glorious it was, when the morning came and the light woke me up. In the midst of all of it I had surrendered to the tiredness of my body. I woke to hear the stage opening to a louder act. The night had worked wonders, the morning sun but helped. It lit up the darkness that was growing in me last night. I closed my eyes back and smiled at the sunlight kissing my every crack. I had found the energy to see to the day coming and I could feel it coarse through every fibre of me. I smiled, simply and effortlessly.

Even now, sometimes I go back to that moment. When the darkness incapacitates me again. I find my way back to that beach. I just have to close my eyes and look through my memory box. It’s always there, ready to be taken out, felt again. I use it against the darkness because my depression will not be allowed to take my joy from me, my peace, my sanity. My joy is greater than it. It will fill me, radiant and bright, from my chest to each corner in my mind the darkness resides in, brightening it. Just like the sun did that very morningw hen I awoke to it, and like it does every day.