A personal reflection on depression, contradiction, and what it means to be seen.

It’s been an awful, draining week.

All I can do is state the fact and try to move beyond the quagmire of repetetive thoughts — and write.

A year ago today I took my first pill, the start of the complicated journey that is called treatment. Many assume that medication is a magical thing, you take it and all is well with the world again, or at least with the way you see it.

Between two countries and two selves, home becomes both comfort and fracture.

There’s change that happens in the world around you, and there’s change that happens to you. The two don’t always align. The latter creeps in slowly — when you’re taking one step at a time, pushing away doubts and the fear of an unfamiliar environment. It lurks at the back of your mind when you cling to new hopes after years in a barren reality.

In Prizren, time fold in on itself. Languages overlap, gestures mirror, and strangers discover they share more than words. Between call to prayer and pop music, between tradition and curiosity, I found the small commonalities that hold us together.

The diversity of Sarajevo is not the result of the formation of a 20th century metropolis, but of centuries of layered histories. There is a spot in the old town, where you look east and see Istanbul, then you look west and see Vienna. The city calls it “the meeting of cultures”. This historical mosaic narrates the story of the Balkans and makes one ponder over the problems of separatism and the possibilities of unity in this rather small, but largely troubled part of Europe.