From Break-ups to Break-ups

I’ve experienced several break-ups so far, still can be counted with one hand but no one knows whether my number will increase or close for the last. Break-up sucks no matter if we had been waiting for it before it happened, still it leaves us a feeling of lost, failure, and ugliness of reality; how come someone that used to be so close, that I always talked to everyday, someone that I (thought I) knew like the back of my hand now becomes so strange and we avoid each other.

I started dating a bit late, not only because I was a late bloomer and awkward geek (maybe I still am), but also because I thought I could plan when and whom I would marry. I thought someone who I dated first would be my husband, I thought I’d played safe to wait until certain age, not like my friends who started dating since middle school. After my first relationship failure, I really didn’t want to have more break-ups, but I still got some. I hated those failures, looking at my friends who already tied the knots, meanwhile I was (or am) still wondering where I would land. It took several break-ups and years until I can see them not as failures, but blessings in disguise. I am grateful for those break-ups, even if they’re painful and ugly and cost three boxes of tissue papers for each, sometimes not only tissue but also unnecessary expensive getaways and impulsive spendings. I am thankful I am not married yet, I am not saying this to make other people who are already married feel bad, things happen differently for us, I am happy if you’re happy, but this what I learned FOR ME. Without those failed relationships, I wouldn’t have been in this state of mind and able to see things as clearly as I am now. Some may have found it early, some are just like me who are in the latter group.

I learned many things from the failures about my self and life. Being in a relationship is not merely learning about other people, it’s mostly about learning our selves, what we lack, what we need to work on, finding out what we really want and need in life and another person, how strong and decisive we could/ should be and many more.

1. You complete yourself

The most valuable thing I’ve learned after several break-ups and accumulated seven years of failed relationship is that setting marriage as the only main goal in life is the most dangerous and stupid thing a girl can do, she is slowly killing her self. She trades herself for something uncertain. For several years and in some relationships, my decisions were based on the relationship goals I was in. Different partner, different path. I quit things I was enjoying because they could hamper our relationship goals, I started things I was not really sure for the man I was with. I became someone I was not just to show them I was the perfect obedient wife candidate as they said they wanted to have. And when the relationship ended, what did I get? What was I left with? I was always left with NOTHING to hold on nor to be proud of. I wanted to be mad at the guys, but more I was mad with my self, why did I let other people make decisions for me? Why did I base my decisions about my future on other people’s assessments? And why didn’t I directly realize? Why did it take some failures and up to seven years for me to eventually learn??

Only I can give my dreams to me. Being dependent on others to realize your dreams is the best way to ruin your life. You can’t love other people if you can’t love your self first. You cant find other person if you cant find your self. You will never be ready to understand other people if you haven’t understood yourself.

To be honest, I really dislike hearing girls who only want to get married, have kids, and don’t have other goals in life. But sadly I used to be one of them. If one of my past relationships had succeeded to marriage, and I had been married before I really understood why I wanted to get married and what a marriage is, I would have been lost for a longer time without really knowing who I really was and being dependent on other people to give me happiness and I’m sure I wouldn’t have been happy. Those were forced happiness. The best scenario was to have kids, raise them, but then when they’re old enough for school, I would have been still back to the feeling of emptiness in my soul, because I hadn’t finished with my self-discovery. What if he cheated and left me after that? What if he died all of a sudden? Then I would have been left with nothing again beside the stereotypes of widowed woman in this somewhat cruelly judgemental country. I believe that if one cant be happy with his/ her self, he/she cant find happiness in that relationship either.

I want to be able to stand on my own feet. When I get married, I don’t want to only be proud of partner’s success, I want to be proud of my self too. Seriously, people should stop telling young girls to just find a successful man to marry and spend his money. Start teaching girls to be successful on herself and shop with her own money.

2. If it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be.

Break-ups taught me that no matter how it seemed to be right in the beginning, how much we believed the person would be our soul mate, if it’s not meant to be, it’s still not going to happen no matter how hard you tried to make it work. Most of the times, we don’t end up with the person we thought was our soulmate, and that’s okay.

3. You’re not irreplaceable, he is either

The ugly reality about break-up doesn’t end when you or he said to break up. It’s what happens after the break-up that’s slowly hurting you to the bones. You will have to accept the fact that somebody else is gonna take your place, got his attention that you used to have, smell his perfume that you used to know, live your broken dreams of being together with him, and it’s not your hair anymore that he’s gonna play with during conversation. His phone lock screen will be filled with other woman’s photo. You cannot expect him to be mourning all the time while you yourself are trying to move on. You’ll start over with someone new (only if you give yourself the chance) as well. You’re going to replace his place too with someone else. In the end it’s just life, people move on.

4. Being single is better than being in a miserable relationship

The pictures of being alone and lonely sometimes scare us. We’re always haunted by thoughts that we could not find somebody else that would love us more than him/ her. Hence, we tend to hold things or person for too long when we’re supposed to let them go. Actually we can only see if the box is not fit only after we get out of the box.

 

Believing in Talent is a Trap

I used to believe in talent, now I’ve stopped. Believing that we’re born better (in some specific fields) than others is as dangerous as believing that we’re less gifted than others.

It is very human that we like to hear only what we want to hear and what we want to hear is that we’re special and other people are ordinary. One might deny it in words, but believes it in hearts.

In my childhood, I was always compared to my brother’s academic achievements, especially in math. I was actually doing fine, I always got good scores and got into top schools and, but my brother always got the best. He represented the province in national championship in elementary school. Hence I believed that I was less gifted in academics. I wanted to move to different school so that I didn’t have to keep up with teachers’ expectation.

As my revenge, I believed I was more gifted than him in other fields. Besides, actually among my classmates, I did well. I felt that I got lucky many times because I rarely studied but always passed the exams safely and sometimes better than others. It started a coincidence then I kept it as a habit. I didn’t like to work hard, I would be as lazy and laid-back as possible just to see how I could still nail it smoothly without even trying, I was proud of it. I teased my friends who were trying to study. I laughed at my friends who were working hard for their goals. I was not alone. I noticed some of the top students in schools had this similar syndrome; taking everything for granted.

But now at this age, in any fields, it’s not my friends whom I thought were talented that are successful today, it’s they who didn’t stop doing and working hard are. They didn’t start with a mile, they started with small steps. Who’d known that their small steps have almost reached the top? But people who I envy most are people who are living my dream; working in creative fields, growing their names in it. I felt betrayed. Not by other people, but by myself.

I felt like, “It’s supposed to happen to me, not to them! How could this happen? What did I miss?”

And you know what I missed?? I missed thousands of days and nights of practice, learning and working on making it to reality. Days and nights which were supposed to use to focus on things I called passion, I wasted for distractions, I wasted on following what other people told me my life should be. I thought that my dreams would still be handed to me without me chasing it. But the world doesn’t work that way.

I looked at my friend who has published some books. Others represented the country in theater. A colleague that used to be ‘invisible’ now can produce wedding gowns.

I won’t be able to be a fashion designer like I’ve always wanted to be unless I start learning how to sew and fashion design. It can’t happen overnight.

Far too often, we believe that our abilities are innate. In other case, we give up many opportunities just because we believe we don’t have the talent for it. “I wasn’t born with the gift of drawing.” Or “I’m not a born leader. Or “I can’t be a writer, I can’t write.”

Without we realize, it’s the ‘myth’ that holds us back, not our ability. People think that the skills in art are based on talent, if you’re not born an artist, you cant be an artist. If that is true, then why drawing techniques and methods exist? Why Mariah Carey still keeps her singing practice until now?

Talent is overrated. Artists are made, not born.

A Video to A Celebrity I Despise (UYA KUYA) – Writing Challenge #5

He’s not a drug dealer, nor a corruptor, politician, assassin, rapist, terrorist, bomber, or any bad profession you can think of.

He’s a father of two and a husband. But that doesn’t make him innocent. He’s a criminal too.

By feeding non-sense to people, especially the poor through stupid TV programs that he creates. He has gained wealth more than he and family needs, but he doesn’t stop. Giving fake hopes and playing with people’s dreams, and he self-proclaims his self a king. King of what? King of bullshit??

Here’s a video for you.

May you rot in hell.

A Video to the Leader of My Country – 30 Day Writing Challenge#4

 

I choose to make my own rules about the 30 day writing challenge, because I am a bit moody. LOL. So I choose topics randomly rather than in order.

This time I choose a letter to the leader of my country but instead of making it in writing, I did a video on my youtube channel!

Yesterday, we just had the Jakarta regional election, and it’s been overwhelming. I don’t have right to vote to participate in the election as I am not a Jakarta resident. But this is the first time an election gives me hopes and heartbreak. I really believe in this media darling-to-hate, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, he has the principles that I believe in. So, when the result stated that he didn’t win, I felt a great disappointment too.

If you’re Indonesian, you must know that Indonesia is now divided into two, pro-Ahok and pro-Muslim. No matter how much they deny it’s about religion, it’s about religion and using religion and race as the main weapons.

Anyway, we should all take the result, it happened already. You cant force to change it. I still hope the elected governor and vice governor of Jakarta can be much better than Ahok, because they have to. No regression is tolerated. Make people who believe in you proud, and make us who look down on you bow!

Watch the video HERE.

A Letter to My Best Friend–30 Day Writing Challenge#3

This is a story of me and my best friend, Karina. I met her during school holiday in an English course in our neighborhood when we were 12 y.o. But actually we went to the same kindergarden. She recognized me, I didnt, because I’ve always been occupied with my own world. We are an opposite-attract. She is the quiet, calm, elegant, shy one. I’ve always been the crazy, sarcastic, sadistical one with comical imagination and likes attention.

Despite the different personalities, we also have many things in common. We both like to laugh at anything and cringe at similar things. Karina likes to listen to my silly imagination, and I like audience like her. We met everyday at school and never seemed to run out of conversation topics. After school, it’s 40 mins to our homes. In public transportation (angkot), we talked and talked sometimes we made the driver mad because I was too noisy. I like to make fun of people who might not even know if Karina and I exist. Karina is too kind to make fun of people, it makes her feel guilty. Hence, she likes to listen to me because that’s actually what she also thinks, by only listening to me, she thinks she avoids sins.

These years of friendship means she has tolerated my weirdness and abuse to her. During lessons, I liked to draw, or write short diaries, or just draw my signature, NOT in my books, but hers. I liked to keep my books clean, so I sacrificed hers. I liked to give her my signatures, I never skipped a day giving her my signatures. I told her that I was gonna be famous one day.

Not only to her books, I also liked to do some experiments to her sensitive skin. If she scratches, it lasts longer than normal people like me do. Therefore I liked to pinch her just to see what color it would turn. And I like to press my tip nails to her skin and make patterns out of it. Her arms were my canvass.

Our puberty is full of stalking only without any results. At that time, internet was rare, our crushes were the popular kids that many other kids had crush on. We were just couple of kids whom even Google map couldnt detect. When school bell rang, we automatically met each other to continue the never-ending stalking. Even though I was outspoken, I had weak knees when it came to puberty flings and expressing my feeling. And Karina is worse. She could suddenly transform into the liberty statue with no fire. Literally.

When we’re 13, I introduced her to internet and chatting rooms. For us it’s the cheapest and fun way to learn and practice our english. We never chatted with Indonesians. What funny was that we always used one computer together. I knew what she chatted to everyone, including her first virtual boyfriend because I was her script writer. We were only 13, so we faked our age. MIRC raped our innocence when guys started to send us nude pics. We thought we were talking about pets. We didnt have pets, we just pretended that we had. Didnt understand why the guys (and sometimes girls) interpreted animals with nudity.

In 2007, I left Lampung. We still keep in touch until now by phone and soc-meds, still talking for hours on the phone even though it’s not every day/ week. Talking to her is therapueic as I need to burst out all the weird things in my head.

She’s always there since my first heartbreak.

And when she had her first broken heart, I was her bodyguard.

Karina has been witnessing my love life drama since forever. For her, my life is her entertainment. The longest time I was single was 8 months. That’s nothing compared to her 6 years of being single until now. But I think, she will tie the knot first.

This number is the duration of our friendship to date. And still counting. Stronger and weirder than ever.

A Letter to Little Me—30-Day-Writing Challenge#2

Hi Little Cita,

I miss being you. So young and free, living without burdens. No worries about the future. I miss wanting to grow bigger and older like you do, now, every birthday and new year makes me sweat.

I really like you, your cool nature, boyish style, bravery, straightforwardness, and you are very practical. I envy you because you could be happy by just blowing bubbles or playing hide-and-seek with your friends. I also admire the fact that you’re a late bloomer.

When I miss being you, I read your diaries until your teenage years. They never get old.

I remember when you always tried to find where the rainbow ends, then you lost track of the way home. At that time, GPS was not invented yet. Your mom was very mad. But the next days, you repeated the same thing. Because you wanted to shower with the rainbow lights and slide on the curve like what you saw in cartoon movies.

I remember you entertained bus passengers on the way from Lampung to Padang by mimicking all TV commercials that you easily memorized at 4 years old.

I remember you always make recaps of TV series episodes that were booming at that time and shared it the next morning to your classmates. Nobody asked you to do that, you just loved doing that.

Then you skipped school to go to library or cyber cafes. At that time, people in your country didn’t even know what internet was. You skipped classes selectively because you didn’t like the subjects and you thought internet gives you more knowledge than a 1,5 hours boring lesson.

I remember that since elementary school until college, you always fell asleep during muhasabah (renungan suci) while your friends and every one in the room were crying out loud.

And you wore men’s hair wax on your hair!

You PAID your brother to do your math chores but then afraid if you would get the highest score, so you erased some of the answers.

You even prayed wearing man’s cap instead of woman’s mukena.

When you’re 4, people know you as the girl who asks shocking questions. But two years after that and onwards, they tell you to stop.

There will be times when you believe all the negativity people throw at you on your intelligence, look, achievement, ways of life, points of views. Comparing you with your brother and other girls. You will meet a lot of people that kill your dreams and what you believe, even since the age of 6 years old.

They say you’re not as smart as your brother and not as gentle as how girls should be. They say your tongue is too sharp for a girl. They say you’re not beautiful and they call you a rebel. They tell you how to feel, behave and what to dream. For dozens of years, this will haunt you until finally you get tired of being scared and dictated.

I wish I were there when they made you feel low and insecure. I wish I had told you earlier so that you didn’t need to undertake this insecurity and hold grudges for so long.

Don’t worry that much about math, you’ll get high scores on it from elementary school to high school. By cheating of course. I remember how you hate math so much that you plan to destroy math from the world. At my age, you’ll forgive math because there are so many other things to destroy; ignorance, injustice, stupid stereotypes, and pop culture rubbish.

Don’t complain about the color of your skin, you’ll be proud of it.

Don’t hate your body, you will look good even in yoga pants.

Don’t worry about losing friends, selection is important. In your teenage, when you enter a room of people, you look around and wonder if they like you. At my age, I look around and wonder if I like them.

It’s ok if you cant and don’t want to fit in. The only person you should not lie to is your self.

You will be sad witnessing people come and go in your life, even those who were so close to you. But that’s the only way you learn about life.

You will be betrayed so many times, but that doesn’t make you innocent. You will betray people too. That’s how you learn that everyone deserves a second chance.

Looking at you know, I realized no matter how much I missed being you, I would never be able to do that again. What I can is to learn from you. To have that passion and chill back. There were years I forgot how to do that. I didn’t feel happy.

But I will make us proud. Promise.

Cheers,

The Adult You

An Open-Letter to My Significant Other – 30DOLWC

Hey you sweet thing,

To start off, please don’t laugh at this post nor the fact that I am writing this kind of ‘too girly’ or ‘too much sensitivity’ thing. It’s all because of you, because you haven’t shown up in this 26 years of my life.

Where in the world are you right now?

You know what, when someone writes an open letter to future significant other, that means she’s close to hopeless. And you know how bad it is when she asks “Where are you?” instead of “Who are you?”, that means she almost gives up on your existence and is thinking about adopting a cat, but she hates cats.

By calling you my significant other, it means you already know about my self, my principles, my life, ups and downs, dreams and family. Some parts of them are probably hard for you to deal with, but THANK YOU so much for staying in this imperfection, I owe you my life. Thank you for staying here even though it’s not always rainbow. I will give you all I have because nobody ever gave me that before, all the teams I’ve been in collapsed and raised white flags.

Just like you, I have a past. Some of it I wish I could undo. Maybe I fell in love too hastily, maybe I thought one of them could be you, maybe I thought I saw a future with them, maybe I was stupid, maybe I was fragile, maybe things happened for a reason that would lead me to you.

I don’t know when you will be reading this. Maybe you’re one of the people who read this on the day I posted this, maybe days after, maybe weeks and months after, or maybe years. Two years, three, five or ten. Whenever it is going to come for us to meet, I will punch you. What took you so long?? You can punch me back for the same reason, but please, not my face. I like my face.

If you’re someone I haven’t met in person or online, I wish you’re doing well. Surprise me.

If you’re someone I’ve met before somewhere, isn’t life funny?

If you’re someone I’ve crushed on… hmm really?? I thought all of you were already married or engaged.

If you’re someone who ever had a crush on me, I can’t wait to hear your stories.

If you’re someone I dated, it’s very unlikely for me to date exes, but if it’s meant to be, let’s forgive each other. There are two reasons why we’re getting back together:

1. I’m hot
2. I’m hot, I know.
3. We both have come to realize something about people and life.

Oh, it’s three! Yeah, I’m still bad at math.

You could be someone I used to hate, or hated me, I don’t know who you would be. Just take care of your self, drive safe, eat healthy food because I want to spend the longest time I could do with you.

It sucks because it’s easier to find American fried chicken franchise than to find you, even though I’ve put my self on so many social media platforms, along with my phone number (because I sell crafts online).

If now I am looking at you reading this, it means I eventually made it. It may take a while for us to get there, but that’s okay as long as I know you exist and are not an alien.

Let’s get old and wrinkly together. Make fun of other people and each other. Tell me random stories. Have little fights then we apologize to each other. Watch good and lame movies. Raise kids. Do charity. Travel the world. Help each other grow.

This is not the first time I wrote to you, please write me back. If writing is not your thing, please simply show up. Before I am getting a cat.

Kisses, hugs, and punches,

Your 26 y.o Future Partner in Crime

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