MET MYSELF

I’ve been sleeping too much lately.

Like I am hiding in it.

Day after day.

Night after night.

Until the borders blur

and my dreams don’t end

they just continue

like a corridor with no door.

In one of them

I remember this clearly

I stepped into a room.

Black floor.

White walls.

Ceiling so high it felt like God forgot to finish it.

And it was full of people.

Children. Teenagers.

Young women in their twenties.

Women in their thirties.

Thirty-nine of them.

And then it hit me

that was all me.

Every year of me,

standing there at once.

I didn’t know where to look first.

I went to the smallest ones.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Their hair messy.

Curly and messy.

Their eyes bright.

Their world still soft.

I knelt down.

“How nenek?

How atok?” I kept asking.

“I miss them. Ada gambar tak?

Jangan susahkan diorang tau?

Do they still smile like that?”

It was all about nenek and atok.

Like my heart never moved past that house,

that kitchen smell,

that gentle afternoon light.

The bed.

And mostly their faces.

The little me just stared.

She answer cheerfully.

She shared all her memories

And I told them,

Remember their faces, 

Because the old me already forgot.

Then I turned.

Teenage me.

The confident one.

The loud laugh.

The straight-A report card.

The prefect badge.

The girl who believed the world

would rearrange itself for her.

I looked at her and said softly,

“Tone down your attitude.”

She smirked at me.

That smug, unbreakable look.

Ah, kids.

They don’t know yet

how sharp the world can be.

How it can sand you down

until your edges disappear.

Then I saw university me.

She was already crumbling.

Notes in her hand.

Dark circles under her eyes.

Too many expectations.

Too many friends that weren’t really friends.

Too much comparison.

Too much love that didn’t stay.

I saw the first crack there.

The first quiet collapse.

The first time I started sleeping to escape.

And then I saw my thirties.

God.

They looked tired.

Sad in a way that doesn’t scream

just sits quietly in the chest

like a stone.

I walked to them.

I hugged them.

One by one.

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

But it wasn’t comfort.

It was confession.

“Nothing changed much,” I said.

“I’m still here.

Still stuck in the same questions.

Still trying to be enough.

Still waiting for something big to happen.”

They looked at me with hope.

Hope.

They thought at thirty-nine

we would have figured it out.

That we would be lighter.

Braver.

More certain.

They thought by now

we would have healed.

And I felt ashamed.

Ashamed that I am still tired.

Ashamed that I still don’t know who I am becoming.

Ashamed that the eight-year-old believed

we would save the world.

Ashamed that the teenage me thought

we would be unstoppable.

Ashamed that the university me survived so much

only for me to still feel… unfinished.

I stood there

in that black-and-white room

with all my years watching me.

And I cried.

Cried for nenek and atok.

Cried for the confident girl

who didn’t know humility yet.

Cried for the young woman

who thought pain was temporary.

Cried for the thirty-year-olds

who waited for me to become better.

I cried because I am them.

And they are still inside me.

Still waiting.

The room didn’t change.

The ceiling stayed high.

The floor stayed black.

But something in me understood

Maybe I’ve been sleeping so much

because meeting myself awake

is too heavy.

Maybe I’m not lazy.

Maybe I’m grieving

all the versions of me

who believed

that by thirty-nine

we would finally feel free.