I Wasn’t Lazy ... I Was Grieving Normal

When the world changed and your body said “pause.” But no one did.

I thought I was just being lazy.

Sleeping through daylight. Skipping meals. Skipping people. Skipping myself.
I'd go out, I'd perform, I'd spin music in front of hundreds ... then come home and collapse into silence I refused to hear.

At the time, I was telling myself stories:
I was tired. I was burnt out. I was just a little off.
But that wasn’t it.

I was grieving.

Not over a person ... not exactly.
Yes, I had ended something. Yes, she moved on. Yes, it hurt.
But what unraveled after wasn’t heartbreak. It was disorientation.
A life I had mapped out ... even loosely ... no longer applied.
I wasn't just sad. I was unanchored.

So I filled the space with extremes.
I partied. I worked. I traveled. I told myself I was living.
I was DJing in Tokyo. Showing up to class after 3pm. Barely.
I was doing everything but pausing.
Because pausing would mean feeling... and I wasn't ready for that.

But there were clues.
Like how I couldn’t be alone. Not on a flight, not in my room.
I’d strike up conversations with strangers just to keep the silence from creeping in.
I even tried to "study hard" on the plane ... not for school, but for distraction.
Looking back, I think I just didn’t want to be the only puppy in the park anymore.
I didn’t want to be alone without a master. Without a purpose.

Eventually, my body took the pause I kept denying it.
I crashed. I dropped out. I flew home.
And instead of excess, I swung the other way.

I gave myself 40 days of religious discipline.
Zahid-style. No distractions. No materialism. Just me, my faith, and silence.
And it worked... kind of.
It gave me the quiet I was too afraid to ask for.
But it also gave me a new kind of discomfort ... a rigid one.
I believed. I still do. But not like that.

The grief didn’t end with prayer.
But somewhere in that silence, a different kind of clarity started to whisper back.
One I hadn’t heard in a long time.

My father saw it before I did.
He looked at me and saw something return to my eyes.
Not fire. Not energy. Just... direction.

It wasn't ambition. It wasn't performance. It was resolve.

I went back to school. After New Year’s 2000.
I finished in June. On my own time. On my own terms.
No applause. No fanfare. Just me, walking my way back from the noise.

I wasn’t lazy.
I was grieving a version of my life that didn’t exist anymore.
And once I let myself mourn...
I found the path that was waiting for me underneath it all.