That feeling has become her friend. She likes it when it settles in her eyes making them heavy. Her brain starts shutting down and she can sense deep sleep caressing her senses. It’s a struggle for some time. She has to stare at the ceiling and pass her time looking at the outline of the fan and the creek of the window that reflects a different kind of lighting every night. When the curtains are pulled, she can see different shapes that the blowing wind gives to the silk curtain. If she listens carefully, she can hear the noises in the distant neighbourhood quite clearly. There is a constant noise of a child waking up from sleep and going back into it again. She has heard it so many times that now it has become familiar. She can hear out the occasional coughing of the men working adjacent to her room who stay back at night and light up a bidi after toiling all day at the construction site. Whenever she turned in bed, she could sense the creaking of the wood beneath her. These voices became very predictable at night. She missed them if they didn’t entertain her ears when she tried to sleep. Her mind finally found a way to not immerse in the thoughts that she easily avoided in the day by drowning her mind in work. She felt nights were still easier. She doesn’t have to speak, explain and utter words. It was difficult for her to frame sentences. It was tough for her to emote. Ironically, in her earlier days, she was a dancer, reader and debater. Words flew from her mouth and it was never a struggle to communicate. Lately, she has realized that it is easier to think but difficult to put her thoughts into words.
Her mind had clarity, but her actions and words did not. The toughest job for her was to prepare her mind and body to wake up the next day after her deep sleep. She was not lazy. It was her unwillingness to face the next morning, carry out the daily chores and drag her body to work that made her energy take a hit. The usual things made her drain out. It was tough for her to take the first glance of herself in the mirror. She would then closely look at herself and discover a new laugh line. She had a brown pea sized patch near her eyes on the nose, a sign of wearing spectacles continuously. Those pair of glasses protected her from making an effort to make her eyes look wide open. Her eyelids were always heavy. She kind of liked it. She would swoop in a little vaseline on them and the lids would shine, making her eyes look pretty. Her face had changed over time. She liked how the corner of her eyes had faint linings and the corner of her lips always remained pink. She liked her hair but she preferred keeping them in a bun, neatly tied up so that she could see her full face. She hadn’t waxed her arms in a while. She disliked the pain and avoided every possible situation to wax them. She had lost the will to dress up. Putting on clothes was the maximum she could do to step out. Her body went through some changes that she was fully aware of.
Her cheeks remained warm while her hands would freeze. Sometimes she could feel the nerves bursting in her brain and it would put her in immense pain. It would feel like a deep prick in different parts of her head each time. It would send a strange pain down her neck and her body would become too heavy to function. Each night when she would lie down while staring at the ceiling, she could feel her throat choke, but that would settle once the familiar noises started. She longed for something familiar each night even if that familiar was something she had never seen or felt. Amidst all this, herself-awareness was at its peak. She knew she was getting into the circle of feeling out of energy, heavy and unenthusiastic. Strangely, she was able to deceive people by simplifying the feeling into a headache, because the signs were similar. She feared her thoughts. More than that, she feared her words. They actually felt a lot different from what she was actually thinking.
It is strange how she managed to cope with the day and look normal. Of course, she looked normal. Any person who has had no chance to speak or emote has the ability to look normal. She would eat, sleep and function normally. Her brain was surely getting shut to the happenings around her but she was conscious of her own self. It was dangerous to know her feelings so precisely. She left no room for uncertainty for herself. The feeling of her lone self in the battle with depression seemed tough in the day but nights gave her the courage to accept her state of mind. Nights gave her a sense of acceptance and newer ideas to get engulfed in it deeply. Nights gave her peace and nights also put her at rest. Both physically and mentally.