how do you know when it's love?

Dearest people, do you love? Do we love?

This is the question that I've been having in the past few years, right after a bumpy experience that has turned my life upside down, down to the point that I no longer recognize it and still wondering up to this day, was that really my life?

I've grown older, just as that bumpy experience grown on me. And my mind has unconsciously started the process of rearranging the structure of my previous belief on things, on life, and love.

Back in my younger days, love was something undefinable, described only with the fast beating heart, trembling knees, sweating hands, and sudden lost for words upon meeting or a mention of the subject of the feeling. Love was magical. And if there was anything negative about love, was that it is draining. It drains the life out of you, and fill you up with something else, something sparkling, something bigger than life. Something like the celebration of the independence day.

I've past thirty now. And I've learned my lessons well.

Within the years span between the bumpy experience and now, I met a few people, and fell for some of them. And with everyone I met and fell for or had a crush on, one by one all the definitions I used to had about love were proved to be fault, and finally had to be taken out of the list.

So now, to quote from Van Halen, how do you know when it's love?

A friend once insisted that you just knew. You'd just knew when you finally meet your other half. She said, you just need to trust your feeling. Then I said, that's exactly where the problem lies. What kind of feeling that you need to trust?

Is it the heart pounding knee trembling feeling? The sudden inability to speak properly? The sleepless nights that follow after the hours of hours of phone conversation? The feeling of fireworks in your chest that makes your days feel like independence day celebration every time you meet that certain person?

Is it the realization of the similarities that both of you have? The knowledge that both of you turn out to have similar hobbies, read similar kinds of books, watch similar kinds of movies, loves to hang out at similar places, have the same favorite songs?

When I ask these questions, the response I get from my friends would be those of sympathy. They must be thinking how poor this little woman, missing so many beautiful moments people would have when they're in love. How poor this little woman, loosing her faith in love and thus losing her chance of meeting her other half.

It got me thinking.

Someone said to me, be careful, there's a very thin line between being a grown up and being bitter. And I've promised myself, that I'd never, ever, ever, going to be that bitter person carrying dark clouds above her head. I might be silent and distant most of the time, but I don't plan to spend the rest of my life spreading negative energy around me and make the world a bitter place.

But I remember witnessing people I know being in love. They would fluently explaining to me the reasons why they're in love with this certain person, or sometimes, why I should be in love with a certain person: he's handsome, he's nice, he's cute, he's attentive and caring, he's so romantic. He makes my heart flutters with his words. He loves to give surprises. He's always be there for me. He may not be nice but deep down he's a gentle soul. He gets along with my mother. He's the one who understands me better than anyone else. He's a very religious person. He's graduated from this and that. He is very opinionated. He's fun to be with. I love the way he makes me feel. I love how he makes me laugh. We have so many similarities. We read the same books. And the list continues.

Hearing them altogether, that sounds like a perfect quality you want from a partner. But somehow my mind always manage to force me to read them again, one by one. You love him, because he's handsome? Oh, you love him, because he gives you surprises? Let's try again. You love him, because he's a very religious person? Another one. You love him, because you read the same books? Not even five of the criteria above grouped together would be enough to be your reasons for loving someone.

And I finally became fully convinced that no, you cannot reason love like that. That is not love. At least, you don't love  a person for that kind of reasons. You think you love the person, but actually, you don't. You just love what they seem to be to you. You just love the reflection of your imagination. You recreate your imagination on them and you think you love them. You take what you need from them. You think you love them because they make you laugh. Think again, isn't that a selfish motive? Love shouldn't be selfish. You think you love them because you love the way they make you feel. Another selfish motive don't you think? Well, it might be true that you love them, but really, the way they make you feel shouldn't be the only reasons why. You love them because they're always be there for you? Because they always have their shoulders ready for you to cry on? Are you clinging on to them with your dear life? Then what would happen to your own life? Don't you want to claim it? You love them because you read the same books? Uhm, okay. You know the answer.

Most of the people I see, and I have to admit, I've been there too, think that they're in love with a certain person, while actually, they're in love with their own imagination. We don't really love the person. We love them for what we think they are, not what they truly are. We love them because, because perhaps somehow, they look good on us, or we look good on them. We create a picture in our mind, an ideal picture of what our love should be, and pick the most suitable person according to our criteria to be there in the picture. In better situation, they're there because they're assigned by the universe to be there to teach us something. But not necessarily love.

So do we love? Do we love someone? Or do we just love the reflection of our hopes that we put on them? 
And again, isn't that selfish? Wouldn't that be a burden too big to bear for them to have to carry our hopes?

I remember having this feeling for a guy. Despite the fact that I'm not planning to pursue it further, I've been keeping the feeling alive for quite some time, simply because it gives me positive energy. The feeling I had was not the kind of feeling that makes me cringe for feeling insignificant and insecure or uncomfortable, feelings that are usually found in the so called love. The feeling I had was the kind of feeling that makes me feel alive and love myself more than ever. However, no matter how positive the feeling is, I realized that it's the feeling that I've fallen for, not the person. I fell in love with the feeling I had for him, not with him. So I gave it up.

But you cannot just refuse to experience that independence day celebration-like feeling when it comes to you, my friend insisted.

I said, well, most of the time, you have very little control of your feeling, because that's just how feelings are. They're not meant to be tamed. So I wouldn't mind. Such fireworks in your heart would be nice to have. But I wouldn't hold on to it.

The fireworks in your chest are beautiful, just as beautiful as when they're bursting with colors in the night sky. But they don't last. Or rather, most of them don't last. Some of them would last a lifetime, but I'm sure you'd not be able to spot it in the first encounter. You'd probably have to go through all the troubles and accidentally burn your hands on the way to find them. Or you probably would only find them when they're no longer sparkling and bursting in the sky and cheered up by hundreds of people. Probably you'd find them when the sparkles have died down, leaving only a constant glowing light, not too bright, but comforting.

No, I don't despise the ideas of love. But I've learned that it needs more than a pounding heart and fireworks in your chest to spot your other half. And it needs reasons beyond just looks or the impression that the person makes upon you, to say that you love them.

Or perhaps, there's just no reasoning at all. Maybe my friend was right after all. You just knew.

So here's where I finally confess, that I still don't have the answer to that Van Halen's question (which in his song, he said he couldn't tell it either but it last forever_now, that's rather difficult isn't it?). I still can't tell when it's love. But I can confidently say that at least I know when it's not.

Do we give too much credit to the word love? Perhaps we do.
Is love overrated? Perhaps it is.

But sometimes, all we need to do to make sure is to just look on the other side, or take a few steps back and look again, or take a few steps forward and look closer, squint harder, or maybe as simple as tilting our head and look at it sideways. Think again. Take your time. 

Love is a strong word, carrying a noble mission, with the right amount of possibility of destruction when not handled with care. Use it sparingly. Treat it wisely.

Jendela

Aku punya sebuah jendela. Hanya jendela. Aku sudah lupa di mana pintu berada. Sudah bertahun sejak terakhir aku membukanya.

Aku hanya punya jendela dan aku tak pernah berusaha untuk menemukan pintu. Kalaupun kutemukan, kurasa aku tidak akan bisa membukanya. Engselnya pasti sudah berkarat. Gagangnya berat. Dan, oh, entah di mana kusimpan kuncinya.

Jadi kuputuskan kalau aku hanya punya jendela.

Bukankah dia tidak ada bedanya dengan pintu?

Bukankah dia lebih baik dari pintu?

Aku akan duduk di sampingnya. Berteman matahari pagi, siang, atau sore, atau bahkan malam ketika bintang menggantung atau bulan pucat membulat. Tak masalah.

Di atara bingkai kayu segi empat itu, aku akan duduk memandang lalu lalang kehidupan. Tiap lakon dan pemainnya. Termasuk juga dirimu. Akan kusapa engkau saat melintas di depan jendelaku. Dan kita akan berbincang-bincang tentang apa saja.

Tidakkah itu indah?

Kalau kau suka, aku akan duduk di sini menunggumu setiap hari. Di jendela ini. Di mana akan kau temui separuh dariku yang memang sangat menantimu.  Separuh dariku yang sedang tersenyum menanti kehadiran separuh darimu yang memang sangat kuharapkan untuk membalas senyumku.

Jangan kecewa bila kau temukan jendelaku tertutup. Aku bukan sedang marah padamu. Kau tahu aku suka sekali duduk di jendela dan memandang dunia. Tapi kadang matahari menyengatku terlalu tajam. Dan angin bertiup terlalu kencang, sehingga menerbangkan semua harapan yang kusimpan baik-baik di balik jendela. Atau, kadang kurasa sudah terlalu lama aku duduk di sana menunggumu. Sampai letih tapi kau tak juga melintas. Jadi, kututup saja jendelanya. Agar aku tak tahu kau lewat atau tidak.

Apakah aku sedang bersembunyi?

Tidak, kataku. Aku hanya tak ingin tersengat matahari karena panasnya kadang menyakitiku. Dan aku tak  ingin angin membawa pergi harapan-harapanku. Kau tahu, kadang angin bisa menjadi begitu berkuasa. Meski kututup jendelaku rapat-rapat, ia tetap mendobrak masuk. Hening tanpa suara, namun penuh keangkuhan. Merangsek, menerjang, dan mengobrak-abrik segala yang ada. Lalu pergi begitu saja, menyisakan dedaunan kering dan debu jalan bertebaran dalam rumahku.

Kau tahu?

Kurasa aku hanya takut bila suatu hari kau akan berhenti melintas di depan jendelaku… Apa yang harus kukatakan pada separuh dariku, yang sudah terlanjur terperangkap dalam keterbiasaan bertemu dengan separuh darimu? 

Bintaro, dinihari

Diambil dari postingan lama di sini

write my fear out

They said, write even if you don't feel like it. Write when you don't feel like it. Write what you feared the most.


So here I am, at the office, during lunch break, trying to face this demon that's been nagging me for the past week.


I love to write. I love to talk about things to myself and to the blank white pages in front of me, waiting there silently, unpretentious, yet demanding. I love how my brain seems to race with my fingers, digging deeper into the secluded corners of my heart, typing it all out and feeling the indescribable relief with every word that appears one by one on the screen. 


Yet writing is always hard for me.
The process of finding and digging into the secluded corner of the heart is painful. Gut wrenching, and sometimes, embarrassing. 


It's always hard to face and acknowledge your own anxiety, let alone to put in on paper. Inside the dark corners of your heart, they are all just feelings. And most of the time we see feelings as something that are not real. They're just, feelings. So it would be better to keep them in that dark corners. 


But once they're put on the paper, they become real. They become alive, because you acknowledge them, you recognize them, you admit that they're there. They are alive and breath out of your honesty. 


And, believe it or not, I find it scary. 


I think this is what makes writing is so hard for me.


It is scary to see how real and alive your feelings are. 


I can always write some other things. Things that will not become alive and point their fingers at me once they're on paper. Things that will only leave my brain and sit with their back on my face once they're on the paper. Things I wouldn't care so much, and wouldn't care so much about me either. Some other things, some other truths.


But they said you have to write what you feared the most. Otherwise you're not being honest.


Looking back, I realized that things I feared the most, are the things that are my truth. My true thoughts and feelings, that I'd never even had the courage to share even with myself. I wrote such things, and I remember that once I let those things out on paper, I feel relieved, yet so drained and embarrassed. A fear would grow, pounding in my chest shouting questions like could it be true? could it be right? what was going on all this time? what would you do?


It's painful. But I never give up on me. I dig deeper, search further, into the darkest corner of my mind and my heart, finding realities in the form of untouched feeling. Realities that are me. 


My latest attempt was two months ago. I started writing something I thought I wouldn't be able to face after it's done. It's something that has been occupying my mind for the past months. It has everything it needs to be impossible and forgotten right there and then for the sake of logic. I've reasoned with myself and failed. And I ended up writing about it. A dream that is too big that it scares me. 


But I wrote it anyway. I've started writing it two months ago and had completed almost 90 pages within a week. But then the more I write it, the more I'm scared. The more I feared of what have been put on paper. The more I feared of the feeling inside me. The more I feared the certainty of how one is never going to know one's self fully for the rest of one's life. What I wrote surprised me. How could it be that the thing you desire the most, scares you the most? I started to back down, and slowed down. But I forced myself to keep writing about it, even though I have to crawl from page to page, word by word.


I'm in pain. But I'm not done yet. Because I just have to write this. I just have to write this. I just have to see them there on papers, all the fears, all the dreams and desires that I'd never have the courage to touch before.


This time, I promise myself to dig even deeper. I'll write what I fear most out of the scariest feeling I have lurking inside of me. I'll call all the demons to come out and face me. I'll wake all the silent dreams to wake and stand on their feet and face me. I'll shake all the sadness and disappointment to come down and crashed themselves on the ground, die, or face me. I'll squeeze my heart until it can no longer bleed.


I'll keep on writing this thing I feared the most for the sake of being honest to myself. 


Something I haven't done for quite a long time.


Wish me the best of luck.




South Jakarta, 1.58 pm
Feeling the tight pressure on my chest

a meltdown

I’ve been reading quite an amount of materials on INFJ and introversion in the past week and I started to really get a grip of what has been going on in me. I guess I’m one of those less lucky introverts who hadn’t find out about the nature of their personality sooner. Will talk about this later, but I guess what I’m having right now is one of the introverts situation.

I’m writing this during a family gathering event. Well, not yet started as this is supposed to be a fast breaking. We’re still waiting for some people. I guess I’m lucky because I got the chance for some quiet moment, as long as the kids leave me alone. So I sit on the patio and opened my laptop, trying to write something to release the tension.

I’m currently having a meltdown. I’m feeling snappish and ready to pick a fight with anyone. The right thing to do right now actually is to lock myself alone in a room and having some alone moment (which I’ve been trying to have since this morning but failed completely since my daughter somehow became mysteriously demanding for no apparent reason) to recharge my energy and neutralize the emotion. Yet, I couldn’t do it, as I have to go to this family gathering.

At times like this, I usually try to find some secluded place, away from the crowd. This time it’s the children swing on the front yard. It’s pretty much quiet because everyone will be inside of the house, gathering around the table waiting for the time to break their fast.

So here I am, typing my heart out, hoping to release whatever it is I’m feeling, drop by drop…