Srinagar, June 3 -- It's a strange thing, standing at the edge of something that once felt like mine.

There's no real word for the feeling. Not grief. Not fear. Just a tightness in the chest. Like trying to step into your old shoes only to find they fit differently now. Not tighter, not looser, just. unfamiliar.

That's where I found myself a few months ago. Reaching out to old editors, hovering over the "Send" button on story pitches, rereading my own sentences like I didn't write them. Ten years. That's how long it's been since I last called myself a journalist. Not a columnist or an ex-something. A working one. The kind who still chased ideas at midnight and rewrote the same paragraph five times before letting it go.

I wasn't a big n...