Slipping through my fingers

I'm back in Malaysia, and as how jetlag goes, it's 4.30AM and I have been awake since 1AM.

Amidst unpacking my stuff, I can't help feeling how being back home, back in this messy home full of dust, clutter and clothes - I'm transported back to being 12, being 15, being 17, being 21, being 23, basically back to being the child at home. I am not the woman travelling alone and exploring new places in London, cooking by myself, going here and there, meeting strangers, walking back at night at 10, 11pm. I am back to being the only daughter, the youngest child, who cannot go anywhere without asking for permission, who needs to be chaperoned everywhere, who needs to be driven to places, who gets into quarrels with her parents, who gets frustrated over the hoarding and shopping habits of her mother, whose house is a giant store of clutter. I am the 17-year old who doesn't want to meet other people, daydreaming about cutting people off. I am the 24-year old back on her single bed that's too short for her legs, wondering if things will get better, if there is a different life out there for her to explore. I am the 23-year old who cannot see any future ahead of her, who believes her life has ended and that it never gets better. 

But this is me now, a 26-year old. I have lived. When I had severe depressive symptoms at 23 and quitted work, I still went to work for a cause, to do something, anything, even when I was paid peanuts, even when the progress was slow, I did it. I picked myself up again and again and did my best to sign up for counselling sessions and tried to help myself. I did a lot of stuff while on heartbreak. I helped coordinate hundreds of people who cannot afford to seek mental health help to get therapy for RM5, even when I was struggling myself. Even when I was a nervous wreck, I went on. When things were too much and I realized I was being exploited, I found my way out myself and didn't stay on, even if it was easier to do so, even if the effort to escape took a lot of energy and effort and willpower, when a lot of that willpower and motivation gets stepped and crushed on again and again. I didn't stop. Then I got a taste of joy, before having it taken away again from unexpected layoffs. What luck. I charged ahead and applied for job after job, amidst all the tears and darkness in my head, and got a job just a month after. I got into a Master's programme in LSE. I tried and went for multiple scholarship assessments and successfully got financial assistance. I lived in London, travelled, survived without a group of friends doing it together with me. I make my own connections, meet people by myself, listen and get invited to politicians' sharings, got a job offer. I see historical events, places, did okay in my studies. Now I am back.

I lived. I lived. I lived.

I pick myself up, again and again. I know I have myself to rely on, that I am here with me to save myself when things go wrong, that I can trust myself to drag me out of bad situations, that I will not let myself stay on the ground. 

I save myself.

And nothing is possible without Allah's help, He always has my back. 

I got this. I always have.