'Angel' (From the Archive)

Saw this note in my online drive and since it has been the most stressful week of the year thus far, I think it's the best timing to pull this 2021 archive out.

TW (trigger warning): suicide - read at your own risk, and please seek help if you think you need mental health support 

Spend all your time waiting 

For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There's always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day

I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled
From the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find
Some comfort there

So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lie
That you make up for all that you lack

It don't make no difference
Escaping one last time
It's easier to believe 

In this sweet madness oh
This glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled
From the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find
Some comfort there

You're in the arms of the angel
May you find
Some comfort here

-

I remember putting this song on an unhealthy amount of repeat back in October 2020 (that it even appeared on my 2020 Spotify Wrapped). I kept on replaying it and felt that I couldn’t have resonated with any other song better at that point. I remember suddenly having a moment of epiphany while working from (my aunt’s) home, and decided to google about the meaning of the song, and I was right about that instinct – it was a song about someone who committed or wished to commit suicide. I think I was... concerned and confused about myself at that point (deep down I know that was somewhat my subconscious thought).  

When I failed my first driving test towards the end of 2020, I think I might have said “Nothing I do is working out, I might as well just die”. I believe the driving test was not a big deal, but the build-up of stress throughout the year was weighing on me, and I have wondered countless times why I was still alive by the end of 2020 – I truly had nothing I was looking forward to as much as I did the years before, and the pandemic obviously didn’t help and the thoughts barely subside. 

When people speak of having ‘extra years of life’ they talk about how they survived an accident, or a major operation, or possibly even cancer. But to me, 2021 has been a really crazy opportunity given by God to me to stay alive for ‘another year’, knowing that, I could have possibly not survived 2020. You really don’t want to know what’s going on in my mind every single day ever since things have gone really weird with life for the past couple of years. As someone with a constant tendency to overanalyse and overthink, uncertainties that has come with post-graduating life AND the pandemic had definitely 'driven me to the brink of insanity', and 'reimagining a content life that doesn’t depend on rigid ideas' is definitely one of the biggest lessons I have been trying (and still trying) to learn this year. (yes I can totally relate to you @dearsarina)

2020 was a big hit, and I couldn’t get over the thought that I could have perished, but He decided that I shall flourish. 2021 was indeed an ‘extra year’ of life I have been blessed with, and who would’ve guessed this would ever happen, but from now on I shall keep track of how many years it shall pass from 2020 until I'm truly gone from this impermanent world.  

This is me being super vulnerable here for no reason but I have watched enough crime documentaries to know that people who commit suicide don’t necessarily show any signs – they can still smile every day, make plans for the upcoming week, seem to eat and sleep normally, not write suicide note etc. For those of you who look normal to me but are struggling with something no one else know about, I hope God bless you with the faith to hold on. Keep on praying because we are indeed just hopeless human beings, and only in Him we could invest our hopes and faith in. Appreciate the little things, it helps a lot. Maybe just random stuff people say to you, or that random cloud shape that looks pretty in the sky, or that random cat looking at you as if it’s saying hi, or that random food that suddenly tastes better than it has always been, or your room randomly smelling nice because you just changed the bedsheet. Idk, just appreciate the little things when you feel like you don’t have ‘big things’ to look forward to. I hope it grants you some sort of gratification and patience, and that’s where ‘a refreshing life’ starts, I hope, and that it will eventually bring you strength to survive another day. 

Life is a tough and adventurous journey; may we all be blessed with enough strength to embrace it. And I hope that somewhere in the heavens, the angels are praying and rooting for us too :)

Nothing is difficult if you seek it through your Lord; nothing is easy if you seek it through yourself.” - Ibn Ata’illah Al-Iskandari