“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”- George Orwell
Like everybody else, I’m just one of those young adults who’s struggling to face adulthood in early 20s. Things sometimes messed up, but then it’ll get better as time heals. It is kinda like a cycle always happening every month. My toxic positivity side told me for every problem has solutions. Then I realized that this cycle gets intense, and I became aware that it is just how it is. There’s some point in life that we can’t fix anything, instead, all we do is just accepting what have happened.
One thing hit me the most recently is another realisation of hard truth: all is nothing but temporary. For 2 years my family have had fun raising our 3-year-old cat, then suddenly I heard he got hit by a car and died eventually. When my Mum texted me, I was in the middle of teaching, but I needed to manage my feeling as professional as possible and tried to be cheerful as usual. The next day, I literally cried for 5 hours non-stop still couldn’t believe what’s going on.
Recently, I also felt how time is more valuable than before. Some may say time is money, but for me time is MORE than money. A year ago, I felt catching up with friends wasn’t as difficult as now. The period when most of my friends had started a new life. Some chose to be busy workers, some chose to be busy to-be-Moms, even some decided to move to different cities. This is the moment when Keane’s Everybody’s Changing became my life soundtrack.
Maybe this is the saddest of hard truths I have to accept: no matter how important we are to our friends and the other way around, we’ll eventually part in certain ways. Maybe some end beautifully, but some may not. I heard that to feel lonely and perceive everybody’s leaving at certain point during the 20s is the process of how adulting works. I’ve read bunch of books about adulting (silly, I know) most of them are telling me to enjoy the ride. There’s nothing to do than embracing this phase and move on. Live a new life with more refreshed soul.
But, we all know books are just books, aren’t we?
I think I’ve lost several people that I value the most though gladly I still have my family cheering for me in my hometown. These days it’s really hard even to have just quick phone calls or mid-night chatting with my close friends. Personally, I don’t care how packed my schedule is, but I’ll make extra effort to keep in touch with people even it sacrifices my sleeping time. Sadly, another truth said: no one exactly cares about you. Maybe I should be more considerate or maybe I shouldn’t have tried at all.
They might be one of my priorities, but not the other way.
As I went through this, I think I still can see the bright side that time is very valuable than I thought. I really value 2-5 minutes call with my Mum or a quick chat with college friends more than before. Even one-hour-karaoke with the right people feels like luxury (thanks to F and A). A couple of days ago, my friend told me that his new office is actually near my boarding house in West Jakarta. Of course, I was thrilled to hear that, hoping we may hangout easily after work. After all, one thing I learned is that we often take for granted little things in our life. And now, I’m happy that I need to appreciate more and be grateful to little things no matter how trivial it is.
Besides, now I realized that many of new positive individuals have come to my life. Even though I rarely spend my time with those who’re far away from me, I still have chances to have fun with people I get to know lately in the beginning of 2019. Although our timeline is temporary, let’s cheer and be grateful to the people that we have today. Also, a couple of months later after my cat died there were 2 cats came to my house and my family frequently feed them even though they still miss our old cat, Cipo, now and then.
We may lost, but I believe we’ll find another sun to bring the bright in our lives.
Catatan Anak Sastra 