Racing Thoughts

Knock, knock! Hello, hello, guys! 🌱

I did not sleep at all.

When the story on my blog was finally written, I stepped out of the studio at 11:30 p.m., carrying silence in my bones. At home, I drifted from one small task to another, settling down only at midnight. I lay in bed, expecting rest, but my mind wandered into endless corridors of thought. Racing and relentless, though I had not touched coffee since the afternoon.

Maybe writing after 10 p.m. wakes a storm in my head that refuses to rest. I tried to silence it, but the thoughts would not let go. In the end, the night carried me away.

Between midnight and 3:30 a.m., I wrestled with sleep and won only fifteen fleeting minutes. By 3:30, I surrendered. Thirty minutes before dawn, I got out of bed. If I could not rest, I could at least let my mind escape into words that were not my own.

So I opened a book, Surrounded by Idiots, a gift from my beloved T24. Though far away, T24 remains close, always anchored in the quiet chambers of my heart.

What drew my attention to Surrounded by Idiots was, in fact, the title. I know that many mentors and so-called gurus out there use certain techniques to gain control over people. Believe it or not, sometimes I actually enjoy watching them do it to me. I just smile. At times I even let myself be used, even exploited. Other times, I simply cannot be bothered to entertain it.

This book reminded me, in some way, of those so-called wise people. They use psychology to control others, never with sincerity, never for the sake of real friendship, but always for their own gain.

I do not read books like this to learn how to manipulate or resist. I read them because I like to understand. To see just how much I might appear like an alien in a world like this. Hahaha.

My beloved T24 once told me, never see yourself as an alien again. I laughed when I heard those words, yet I understood what was meant. This is what it feels like when you are told you are different since childhood. Sometimes that difference makes me proud. Other times, it makes me wish I could rest in a place where the pain could no longer follow. Strange, isn’t it?

Today marks the third day of my dopamine detox, a path I chose after sinking into a low mood that has lingered since the end of August. Alhamdulillah, it never reached the kind of darkness where I longed to walk into the sea and let the waves swallow me whole. hHahaha... Yet the weight was still enough to paralyze me. My work lay untouched. I drowned in my bed, sleeping away the daylight, shutting myself off from the world hour after hour, day after day. Tears came without reason. My body was here, but my mind was elsewhere; wandering, chained to the past.

Even in that state, I clung to a fragile sense of control. I still kept up with my kesayangan T24. To everyone else, please forgive me. I will return your calls or texts but not yet. Say what you will about me; I no longer care.

Being on call with my beloved T24 became a quiet kind of healing. Even without seeing each other face-to-face, it felt as if we had. And when the call ended, the silence returned, heavy and unkind. Yet in that silence, I held on to the faint echo of her voice, as if it were the only sound keeping me from vanishing into the emptiness.

I’m planning to finish some projects today, and I truly hope everything flows the way it should. Lately, I’ve been dreaming about creating my own notebook, thicker and heavier in my hands, its blank pages stretching out like untouched skies. The thought of it feels like a quiet kind of freedom. I want to use it for the coming year, to begin again, to let every page hold the weight of my thoughts, my healing, my becoming.

But right now, my body reminds me of what I lack. I feel nauseous and dizzy from the sleepless nights. Maybe I should surrender for a while, close my eyes, and let sleep carry me gently back into its silence.

And when I wake, perhaps the silence will still be there, waiting, like a shadow that never leaves.