The Long Conversation With You

 “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it..." - Lois Lowry

Hi Mas, it's been a while.

I dunno wether you will read this or not (and how you'll read it anyway), but I'm already on my verge of breakdown. I do not trust myself to have a reflective conversation about everything that happen in my life for the recent years after you left to another universe. But I need to write this. Really need to. Although anyone could read it (I'm a paradoxical human being, tangling with inside war everyday in my head). I send this to you. Only you.

2020's been so damaging, rough, unexpected, but brought so much growth that suffocating. I lost you, lost myself, lost my damaged love-obsession towards a man, but yet I shone on my academic journey. I passed my master degree on time, got a decent part time job at my almamater, editing a book, and living in the bright spot of Jakarta. A crowded city that seems never sleep.

Yet I lived, day by day. But at night, sometimes, I woke up. Asked myself what's wrong, why I'm not enough. Radha (your bickering partner), Jujun, and Uji protected me with their own different ways. Even they didn't boast about it, I always knew their got my back. I owed them much. Even 'till now.

Losing the love that I've been pushed so hard for nearly five years is clearly bizzare. Deep down I know this wouldn't work out. It never works. But you knew already. I'm a narcissist with high-ego, control freak, and nightingale syndrome that you used to say for years during our random convs. This lost blown my heart completely, leaving me cold and ruined.

I survived 2020 relying on my career, siblings, and BTS. You'll laugh about this. Due to the karmic retribution, I put my happiness to the seven men from Korea who didn't even know that I'm exist. But their presence, music, and stories became a fruitful distraction. A tool to keep me entertained, till now.

2021 was another vicious. I spent half of the year rolling in the deep of my self mental destruction. I hated myself that much. I couldn't forgive myself for what I did to me. Another bizzare, right !?

But deaths were surging around me. The pandemic rose to the maximum, killed people here and there. But it spared my family, my life too. I pushed myself to wake up. To see what's the Creator need to tell me with my life. And, I got myself back into our almamater (my first, the green one), becoming an ordinary civil servant. The thing that made my mom and dad happy. By the end of the year, I passed the test. Then reality hits me. I had to back to Padang. Lived again there with all my prejudice and fears.

2022, February, I went back home.

Workloads were effectively distracting me from every turmoil inside. But as you always knew, my parents nagged me to get married. I don't. I'm already giving up in any romantic relationship for sure. I didn't tell them that. We just argued a lot, sometimes with tears. I didn't tell them my sappy unrequited love stories since I had feelings for boys. I couldn't burden them with that much disappointments. I didn't even tell them that I consider to not have kids. I'm clearly on the childfree side.

I noticed that I felt easily irritated and angry all the time. But inside, I felt cold. I pushed away every slightest romantic connection, even a connection. You knew already I'm a total faker. My expertise of pretending is grown rapidly. I'm too immersed in a 'don't fucking care' persona. It is easier.

The little sane part of my mind then pushed me to ask help. Yep, I got my first professional attendance to a psychologist. The first and only session that I've ever attended. She said: I'm really hard on myself. True. I haven't made any effort to go back. I ditched that efforts. I ended my 2022 with workloads with this shitty systems. It's systemic, our freakin' nations.

2023, now it's November.

I dare myself to do an unusual thing. I watched SUGA concert to celebrate my birthday (my first concert in my 35 years life). I bought BTS albums, built another mechanism to protect myself with the hobbies, the music, and the few people that I chose to be around. But, I'm still easily feeling sad and empty. Even in the crowd.

Work intimidates me. While I'm pretending that I'm okay with that, showing that no one can push me. But I'm scared. Really scared. I wanna fly away to continue my study, but I don't know how. I'm starting to build up doubts, while I'm being older and cranky. I'm really scared about my own capabilities. Could I? Would I?

Mas, I'm so tired somehow. The building of self-doubt is starting to consume me while I'm faking to be the ironclad warrior who face everything bravely. Nowadays I feel so tired with everything. I pretend I'm okay, even when I'm not. But the intriguing thing is that I don't even know what am not okay about.

See, I'm still babbling random things to you, even after all this time.

I know it's pathetic. My fears, my incompetencies. I just keep surviving, right?

Mas, you've came to my dream twice or thrice. Just to smile and do random things. I'm not asking you to say anything. This is just me, using this damn ignored blog to have a long conversation with you. I should cry writing these crap. But I'm not. I wrote these in business-mode. Lone-effective way.

Do not start talking about my spirituality. I just did the routines.

I have stable job, a regular career that most of people dream of, but inside, I dunno. Mas, I should keep surviving. But I do not know the purpose.

I should end these here. I need to go back home. It's already tiring outside.

Bye Mas.