Been months since the last call
Thanks to heavy rainfall
The leaves now fall
No more tears waterfall
Or tons lies to recall
You’re my ashfall
Let me flee from debris
You burned me alive
Those dark clouds in my mind
Thought you were so kind
In my mind
You were fine
Play those games behind
I was blind
Drunk in wine
What a summertime
Coda:
Summertime
Wasting time
Hustling is the new lifestyle. People are obsessed with anything is possible that every problem has its solution. Some of us tend to suppress feelings and assured ourselves “No, I can handle this, as always.” Manipulating self to be tough and in control over things beyond our control.
As the world overglorify positive and growth mindset, negative emotion are perceived as cancer we need to get rid of it as soon as we feel them. Therefore, escapism is inevitable. People get drunk, overeating, impulsive online shopping, or simply endless scrolling on social media. Wishing that the void will vanish instantly.
Like positive emotion, negative emotion needs to be embraced and welcomed. Unfortunate fates happened for some reason and all we can do is sit and watch. Rather than denial, acceptance is more effortful. To let the storm happens without panicking and running away is challenging.
Not to mention constant insecurity due to people’s timeline in social media, this demands us that being happy is a life goal while being depressed and sad are considered toxic. In fact, people who tend to bottle up feelings would explode once they couldn’t bear it. Why bother piling up feelings when you can nurture them gradually and more healthily.
When my mom cried as she vented, I often asked “Aren’t you tired of crying?” She always answered, “It’s better to cry and feel it rather than hiding them. Pouring your feelings never hurts.”
Since that day, I welcome my slump days as I welcome my hyper enthusiastic days. As some say “No rainbow without rain”, I’d spent hours lying down or crying as I sing heartbreak songs though I can’t relate. The next day, I feel refreshed and ready to start the day. Some of my friends would watch sad series to trigger them crying and eventually let out what they need to release. You will have your own version.
There is no instant process in building self-acceptance, after all. Some attend webinars and trainings. Some simply read books and listen to podcasts. Some need to be introduced to misadventures and learn them by going through it. When one has accepted themselves, they would be aware of what’s good and bad for them. As I wrote this entry, I found a cute quote on Instagram, “Some people are like Ads, just skip them.”
Wasting energy on certain individuals would be in vain. Indeed, the process of learning our worth and accept what we experience is a long journey. After all, the worst enemy is ourselves. We can’t help wanting to control things we can’t control. We can’t help to please people in order to get validation. We can’t help to love someone we can’t have.
The question is: Are you willing to embrace them, or jumped into the same hollow?
Some people like being special and unique. Individualism teaches us to feel that every person is different has distinctive quality.
Sometimes I found myself saying “Many women are……, but I’m different.”
“Their make up are too much, natural look is far better.”
“She’s prettier with hijab.”
“She’ll be happier if she’s single.”
“Girls loving pink stuffs are overrated.”
“I’d rather to rant to boys, girls can’t keep secrets.”
“Girls are drama queen, ugh!”
“Being a housewife is easier than becoming a working mom.”
For me, it was normal saying that until this year. I realized that I’ve been underestimating other girls as a result of my gender bias.
Graduated from a literature major and taught by some feminist professors, I’ve been always proud that I had chances to expand my perspective regarding patriarchy and feminism. I’m not proclaiming to be a feminist, but I stand for women’s rights and gender equality.
After watching some Ted talks about pick me girl topics, I began to realize having internalized misogyny within myself. Internalized misogyny is when women portraying other women, or even themselves, to be inferior.
When I was a teenager, I often said “I prefer having boys as friends than girls.”
Subconsciously, I saw men was better than women while the issue may be about people’s personality and it has nothing to do with someone’s sex.
In the workplace, I’ve had talks about some married women tend to be not professional, but that’s totally biased. In the recent training I had from the global office, I learned that gender bias to working moms happens in every country in the world. When I step back and see things in the bird’s point of view, I’ve known some married women and working moms who have incredible achievement at work. It’s about work ethics, after all.
I’ve seen many posts on Instagram that women need to be independent and even some said that women do not need any men at all. In fact, women can choose any life path they want. Some may need men next to them, and some may choose to live alone without any attachment to anyone. They are both valid!
Women can be anything they like. They can decide to be single, married, full time mom, working mom, ustatha , monks, or nuns.
We can’t help having internalized misogyny amidst patriarchal culture around us. However, we can learn to respect women and allow each other to express ourselves in our own way. Indeed, it’s easier said than done, but this act needs to start from ourselves now. Spread respect!
At the age almost 24, there is one thing I’m still afraid of. That is a commitment. Commitment in maintaining relationship to be precise.
Something happened to my family when I was 4 year old. Unfortunately, it still has certain impacts to me up until now. I was afraid the idea of marriage, well I am though. The idea of loving someone and living with them for half of your life is just scary. Of course, people say there are ups and downs in marriage, and some people thought those made people grow up as adults and know their partner deeper. But, my 23-year-old-ass couldn’t comprehend this idea. How could a person commits to another individual who’s basically a stranger? The idea of loving someone for that long is appalling.
However, when I was 14 I wasn’t afraid of the idea to love someone sincerely. I don’t know what things could be categorized as love, yet I was dedicated to a boy who didn’t even know me for the whole 2-3 years. Continue reading On How I Envy My 14-year-old-self
As a sensitive person, I tend to be more aware of myself, especially what other people perceive about myself. Sometimes, a little bit too much. Frankly, I really envy of people who can easily ignore other people’s perception since this hyper-self awareness can lead into anxiety and unnecessary insecurity.
During our 20s, the possibility of us having projects with some strangers is quite high. In meeting different types of individual, we need to maintain certain boundary to ourselves and others. This is why freshgraduates like me tend to make mistake, or untactful approach in understanding ourselves, especially in choosing to what extent we limit our personal boundary.
Observing myself for couple of weeks, I’ve been anxious possibly because there are lots of changes happening recently. It’s quite overwhelming to part with some people and then suddenly new individuals came and resulted a brand new environment. It seems I lost control of myself in dealing with others, and specifically my own autonomy.
What’s the cause? I have huge hunch this is about my inferiority.
Currently, I’m reading some books related to Adlerian psychology. One aspect discussed is the feeling of inferiority. The reason why people tend to be inferior toward others is not merely because we aren’t confident enough. However, it’s due to our tendency to compare ourselves to others. According to Adler, all problems in our society is all about interpersonal matters. Continue reading Coping Inferiority through Adlerian Psychology and Johari Window Model
2019 will end in another month then 2020 emerges. It’s a bit scary to see time has an extraordinary ability to stretch that fast in my time frame. As usual, I always wrote a recap of what had happened in a year, and this is it.
Different from the previous 2018 recap, I’ll write this as a narrative. For me, 2019 has been a unique year since it’s my first year of my post-graduate experience. 2018 is all about me getting out of my university, but 2019 has been exciting yet confusing at the same time.
I take a look at my annual target written in 2018, and some of them are checked. One of them sounds a bit cheesy: being a dedicated and loved teacher. Frankly, I didn’t feel that I’ve already succeeded to become one, but I’ve been trying. I know there are no perfect teachers in this world, but so far I’ve tried my best to take this role seriously and passionately as other teachers in many sides of the world have done.
In the beginning of the 2019, I didn’t expect to get an appraisal as one of the helpful staffs and received an honorable mention despite of my first year as a full time service teacher. It was an honour, yet a responsibility to bear for that names. In the middle of 2019, my previous supervisor suggested me to join a teacher competition, and somehow I made it to top 3 nationals. I was able to attend a national conference where my corporate’s leaders gather and experienced an unforgettable moments in Batam and Singapore. Bad news, I didn’t win as the teacher of the year, yet it was a great learning experience to participate as a newbie in front of national company leaders from around Indonesia. I’ve been always curious of being a leader in certain institution, and to receive such exposure I was extremely thrilled.
Besides my close friends were married and it’s hard to catch up with them, I also encountered new individuals and get to know them more. It was lonely, as it’s always adulting promised to be, but things are not as terrible as I thought.
Yet, all above was part of the bright side in 2019. The rest of what happened is a bit blurry and gloomy. Continue reading The Collisions: What happened and Unplanned Decisions
These days, I felt like the world is getting darker.
Frankly, I still consider myself as a positivist person who likes to see things from the bright side. As my profession demands me to persist my habit, it becomes my trait and way of thinking in perceiving life. Yet, this mindset that I considered nice revealed another hard truth I learned.
Apparently, this mindset sucks. Well, in certain ways.
As I became more sensible and aware of people’s perception, I can see those who are genuine or some are being nice only because they had to. It’s not that I’m a sincere person who can scan people’s sincerity in everything. I just became more aware that people are playing their masks strategically. That strategically.
I used to perceive that most of people around me are supportive and encouraging of what I’m doing and pursuing. Yes, people’s perception towards me matters since I have this strange inferiority complex. I used to be THAT innocent. I thought my parents are supporting me in terms of my career, or my friends respecting me of being a teacher instead of having a super-high salary job, or my coworkers encouraging me to win a competition. Nonetheless, they don’t. Continue reading Schadenfreude : Emerging Pleasure from Pain
“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.
People perceive themselves in different ways. Some people are highly confident about what they’ve achieved, but some may not take any pride of their achievements. As the time passed, I’ve seen how pride can be two sides of coin. One may boost your personal development and self worth, the latter may turn you into overconfident, fussy, and arrogant creature.
When I was in high school, I used to be the know-it-all girl and saw myself as one of the smartest students in the whole school. Moreover, I used to think my taste of music, books, arts, are above my classmates and felt like the coolest girl, but actually I was far from that. Reminiscing those days, I realized that I was so into myself and blinded my perspective toward others. I only respected some people whom I thought cool and smart, but saw those chatty and noisy classmates were such a pain in the a**.
The moment hit me the most happened during my university entrance selection in 2014. I had overflowing confidence that I could pass the rapport selection (SNMPTN) since I’d always been top 3 students in class for 3 years in a row. After waiting for 2 months, the announcement was released and I surprisingly failed to pass the selection while some of friends who I considered “mediocre” got accepted. Back then, I couldn’t believe of failing because I’d often overestimated myself and didn’t value what others are capable of. In the end, that Gong-moment changes the way I perceive myself and others up until now. Continue reading Take Pride, Only Sometimes : On How Pride can be Boomerang to Ourselves
You felt like you’re still 17, but suddenly you graduated school, employed, and 20ish feels like old. More stress, more tasks, more responsibility, more things to be done. I’ve never imagined that growing up can be this so fast. Suddenly my childhood friends are getting married or already have one or two kids. Many things shock me a lot these days. I felt like my timeline is getting slow, but then I realized that we’ve never been each other timeline. Just like what my senior said during college, “Everyone has their own time frame.”
But, yea, adulting has never been easy for anyone, including me.
Adulting is?
Quoting Urban Dictionary, adulting is “Post adolescence when the light in your eyes fade away and dies.” WELL THAT’S KINDA TRUE. For me adulting is more like you-are-too-old-to-ask-for-money-or-any-financial support-to-your-family phase. Or like.. decision-making-now-becomes-hard phase. Or.. reconsidering-my-beginning-career-path phase.
There are bunch of definitions out there you can find. You also can define your own adulting definition. But I decide I define what is adulting to myself: dealing with real life.
Adulting Signals (that I learned)
Recently, many things struck me, then I realized that life has just begun. I mean.. like real life. As simple as I must take care my own tax. That’s kinda huge in the beginning. As life post-graduation begins, here are some moments signaling that the shallow-fun-easy-college-life really ends:
Making friends becomes a little bit difficult after college. Not all our co-workers can become our friends eventually. I realized that my circle is getting smaller and smaller during 6 months after graduation. However, I become more aware of many types of people, especially in choosing my roles as a person. Somehow, I get to know myself deeper because I didn’t know how to differentiate my behavior to different people. Although I know my circle is getting smaller, I don’t feel small at all. In fact, this small circle that I have is the most true person in my life who support me and accept who I am. I mean, it’s better to have valuable small circle rather than having large but toxic people, isn’t it?
Catatan Anak Sastra 