When all is fail, write

At least that's how it is with me. 


Writing has always been the best way for me to channel my restlessness. I'm one of those people with busy brain that never stops talking and processing thoughts, digging deeper and deeper into things, connecting and retrieving information and thoughts, and turning it over and over again inside the skull of my head. Sometimes, the thought it's playing with is not that important, often times, it's absolutely not important at all. But it doesn't seem to mind that I actually question my brain's judgment on making priorities. 


It's really tiring to hear all the talking inside my head. And for years I've been unconsciously developing a mechanism to shut them up by putting them down on paper (and by paper here I also mean a blank white page on computer screen_kind of paper look alike). I don't always indulge it though. Most of the time, I ignore the talking until they turn into some kind of a scream, or a cry. Then I'd force myself to sit still, face the blank page, and deal with them with true honesty that will only come out through writing.


It's never an easy process. The waiting phase, the phase where the thoughts start transforming themselves from thoughts to screaming thoughts, or crying thoughts, is painful. The heavy feeling in my chest, the restlessness, the constant looking back or looking aside diverting me from whatever it is I'm trying to do, whatever it is but writing, is annoying. After days, I'd feel incoherent and unable to focus. I'd spend almost thirty minutes just to write a simple email to a colleague. It's annoying the way they keep diverting your attention from the current moment you're in and pulling you back to somewhere, some time, where the thoughts dwell. 


What strikes me the most is, actually, how I never learn that it's a battle I'd never win.


I've always known it that those busy thoughts are not something I can ignore. In fact, they are actually something I have to follow and indulge, if I want to be at peace with myself. But I keep ignoring them, turning away from them, throwing promises that I'd visit them at proper times, proper occasion, proper mood, proper place. Hence my never ending restlessness.


In these past few days, I've been drowning with the feeling, unable to settle them down, but also failed to make myself to sit and disentangle the knotted thoughts inside my head. I've been refusing to say yes to them. I imagined myself, slightly upset, telling them to grow up and stop pestering me and solve their own problems, stop being so demanding because I have another life to tend to so they cannot expect me to always be there all ears and ready with pen and paper whenever they need me, and for God sake, they really need to shut up for a while and be quiet, how would they think I'd be able to understand what they said if they keep talking and talking, and really, haven't they heard about priority? 


As usual, feeling totally exhausted as a result of constant denial, I finally sit and wrote. I wrote, because I've tried reading, I've tried browsing for articles, listening to songs, watching TV, working, drinking coffee, daydreaming, staring at the rain, even sleeping. All failed. I have to admit that the only way I could calm them down is by writing them down. And bear the consequences of possible another spark of thoughts appearing along the way, ready to bloom into another screaming thoughts within the next few days, creating another restlessness within me, stuffing my chest until I finally give up and turn around and face them. And write again. 

incoherent

I went to work this morning with more than half of my heart was still left at home. I think I’ve left them somewhere close with my sketchbook and coloring pencils, near the unfinished drawing I started last night.

I try to calm down and prepare myself for the one and a half hour trip getting to the office. I put on my earphone, playing Putumayo playlist, hoping to sooth the restlessness in me. I sat myself at the last row in the bus, right next to a window. It’s my favorite place because it shields me from the chaos inside the too crowded bus. I turned my iPod volume to the max, and opened a book. I was distracted, but not that much to help me completely forget the restlessness.  After a while I finally gave up and closed the book, thinking that perhaps this is one of those moments where it’s better to be quiet and still, to let the busy brain stop talking for a while and let silence occupy your head.

At times like this, I cannot help but wonder. Have I been ungrateful with the life I’m having now? I ask myself the question over and over again while watching, from the window of the rusty bus, a number of street vendors running on the street, trying to get into the moving buses. In front of me was an old man I usually see wandering about at the train station piggybacking his adolescent retarded son. While passing the intersection, I caught a glimpse of a street singer standing at the pavement, watching the buses go by, looking disappointed. It seems they were also trying to get into the bus but failed to cross the street, hampered by a bunch of motorcycles.

I know and I’m sure that I’m far from being ungrateful. I’m more than glad that I have a place every day to go to work for. And every day I pray for those people I meet on the street, wishing a better life for them. But this restlessness, these voices calling from somewhere inside of me, is not something I can ignore. It’s getting more and more unbearable every day. It’s something I know I’d have to follow.

I wrote this post once I got the the office, still having no clear idea on how to deal with it. 

So dear people, sorry for giving you more clouds :)

I need a help here.

Misunderstood

Dear world,

This is one of those moments when punching a solid wall seems to be an appropriate, justified action, for the sake of sanity.

I can almost see myself listing down a few things as justifications before walking to the nearest wall here inside my house and land a punch wholeheartedly to it. Bruised knuckles are expected. But for a moment it felt like worth it. All the reasons I'd listed down, seemed to deserve the bruised knuckles. Just like the innocent walls deserve a punch, simply for standing there solid, calm and composed, unmoved by the struggling I'm having right in front of their faces. 

If, walls ever have faces.

The thing is, they don't. And that negates all the reasons I was about to list down earlier. And finally cancelled it because, well simply, because walls are innocent.

Dear world,

I never wish I'm not who I am now. I've learned to love being who I truly am, accepting the fact that I might have to live the rest of my life being misunderstood by people around me. 

To those who don't, I really thank you all. And I'm really grateful to God for letting me to have such people like you around me, though there aren't many of you out there.

To those who do, I don't blame you. You are just as innocent as the walls. You cannot be guilty for standing there solid and confident, believing what you believe and seeing the world through your eyes. It's your eyes anyway. You cannot possibly guilty either for being ignorant to the fact that there are other humankind seeing the world through different eyes. The same world, just through different eyes. Or, to be more precise, different from yours. 

Dear world, 

I know it's never about who's to blame. And I never wish for the world to be different. 

I just wish that it wouldn't hurt so much to be misunderstood.

the moral of the story?

I was having a really bad day at the office yesterday. Not that it's the first time. Looking back, that has always been the case with my job for the past six years: deadlines, crazy deadlines, friendly deadlines, I-understand-your-workload-but-sorry-what-else-can-I-do deadlines, chaotic environment filled with tension, people hurrying by to catch up with whatever it is running ahead of them, trying to get ahead of everything.


That was my introvert, HSP self talking.  


There are times when my less than 1% extrovert self (yes, I still believe that I actually have this, the test system just failed to recognize it) coming out and decided to take the front line, and see things rather differently. That it has always been a good place to work. That it's actually the best place to grow, full of challenges and experiences of new things you might never heard of before. That it's actually a place that will boost your confidence by taking you involved in big things, big scenarios, access to classified information, meeting important people. That those tensions, that chaotic environment, will be from time to time, filled with the sounds of people throwing jokes, laughter everywhere, victory scream over new business wins, friendly faces smiling over small unimportant things of our everyday lives.


I learn not to judge what my two sides of self see. They do have their positive and negative sides, though I am perfectly aware that I will always be gravitated to what I truly am: the introvert, the HSP, the unsent, the one that doesn't fit in. 


In some days, I can walk into the office calm, composed, collected, full of control of myself, ready to take any challenges offered by the day. In some days, I would walk in miserably, feeling frustrated by the chaotic environment, intimidated by deadlines that haven't even existed (yet). Yesterday was one of those days. With two deadlines waiting, the HSP in me that were on active mode started to panic. It wasn't a good condition and I collapsed, layer by layer, throughout the day. 


I finished my work for the day. Some of them. But I felt torn apart; my pride was torn apart, the idea I have about myself was challenged to the point of questioning my very existence in this world; am I just one of those passerby? One of the dying soul walking around the earth simply trying to make ends meet before the end comes and take away everything life is?


I spent the two hours going home trying to fight the tears I knew wouldn't be able to come out anyway. Just glistening moist at the corner of my eyes. My chest was full with emotions and my head was full with thoughts, both I have no control of. They were swirling, turning around, and I was so sure that I was going to cry last night. 


But then, not so far from my house, I saw some kids playing ular naga panjangnya. It's a traditional game I used to play when I was a little kid. I live in a suburban area, thus it is actually not uncommon to find children playing traditional games. But seeing those kids forming a row, singing and giggling while moving in a snake-like motion last night somehow brought a smile to my face. I suddenly thought of the days when I was one of those kids, singing and giggling under the moonlight. For a brief moment, I could feel the excitement I used to have while running around bare feet with my little friends in front of our houses. It was brief, but it was able to lift the heavy feeling off my chest. So last night, despite the intimidating day I had previously, I reached home with lighter heart and a smile on my face. And I'm really thankful for it.


I felt grateful how some things, are, comfortably, remains the same, especially within our heart. Now I see why.


So, dearest people, what is the moral of the story? I don't know. I don't think I've started this blog post with such a noble idea to give and moreover, to highlight a valuable lesson. At least not this time. I don't know what the moral of the story is, and I'm not planning to dig deeper into my brain to find out about it anytime soon. I started this blog post with a rather selfish intention, that is to let you know that I was having a bad day and unable to deal with it, I've let it ruining my day, but then I managed to came home smiling because of some kids playing ular naga panjangnya. 


Was it about finding the silver lining in the sky? Was it about having positive thought in your hardest times? Was it about finding peace within yourself? I don't know. 


I just remembered that when I opened the gate of my house last night, I sighed, and thinking, oh such an old wisdom, never fades in time. 


But what was it, really?




South Jakarta, in the middle of this chaotic place, while waiting for my research plan being reviewed

The "I" That Matters

I remember reading somewhere that writers are for whom writing is much more difficult compared to other people. 


I'm not a writer yet, though that has always been my lifetime dream. For now, I would have to satisfied with the title of a 'writer wanna be'. But I understand what it means to have this constant restlessness, to have this too many thoughts and emotions within you, to feel the urge to release them but somehow, the idea of materializing them in the form of rows of letters and words, scares you. I know how it feels to be trying to ignore the voices within you, calling and nagging, asking to be indulged. You long for the voices, you need to embrace them, yet you remain there at the other side of the river, refusing to follow the stream, afraid of being carried away, no matter how tempting the water is. 


I know how it feels to have this understanding deep down that you need to do something. Yet you're just too afraid. To worry. Too uncertain.


I have been constantly in such state of emotion for the past ten years.


I blame everything in my life now. I cannot indulge the calling, because right now I'm living the kind of life that would not allow me to do things other than the things that 'has to be done'. I cannot indulge the calling because once I do, I'd be carried away and get off the track of the life I'm living now. And going back is never easy. It is never easy to let go of the things you'd put your whole life and heart into. It's easier to pretend as if they don't exist. 


That has always been my excuses for not writing.


The life I'm living now is not the right environment for me to write. It fails to inspire me. I takes too much of my time and energy. Everyday it gets me drained right to my bones, until I have nothing more to write. I might still have many things to write, stuffing my chest and creates unbearable suffocating feeling, but I just can't write. Somewhere deep inside my heart, there's this small part of me questioning, does it really matter? Does it really matter whether I write or not? Does it really matter since there's always something more important to do? 


I blame them for preventing me to be what I always want to be: a writer. I blame the fast-paced environment of my current job for failing to provide the right kind of environment I need to be able to come up with something to write, for always keeping me away from silence and serenity, for constantly and persistently giving me chaos I don't need. I blame the life I'm living now for keeping my feet planted deep into the earth, unable to move, stuck with the kind of people (I think) I don't need, in order to help me write.


Until I read this book,The Sound of Paper, written by Julia Cameron. It's a book about personal struggles all artists experience, about the soul works artists must undertake to find inspiration.


I haven't read the whole book, but the excerpt I found on the back cover struck me.


"We must, as the elders advise us, bloom where we are planted. If we later decide that we must be transplanted, that our roots are not in soil rich enough for our spirits, at least we have tried. We have kept hold of the essential thread of our consciousness, the "I" that gives us the eye to behold."


It suddenly came down on me that none of the things I've been complaining about all this time deserve the blame for my persistently ignoring the voices within me.


I realized now that I should learn to see things differently. 


The fast-paced environment I'm currently working in could have been my source of inspiration all this time. They could have been the constant reminder reminding me how precious silence is. 


The people I think I don't need, they might have been the people I need the most in order to keep writing. They could have been showing me the reasons why we need solitude from time to time, why we need to appreciate our aloneness, to be able to dig deeper within ourselves.


All the chaos I don't need might have been there to keep my restlessness alive, so that I will not stop struggling, and questioning. So that I can keep this little flame alive and prevent myself from dying. So that I'm arrive at the comprehension I'm having now, that to dig deep into one's soul, one needs the chaos as much as one needs silence and serenity. That whatever world you live in, you just have to learn to bloom and rise to your maximum potentials, and that you actually CAN do that, because it's a matter of the "I" that is in you. It's all about you, what's in you, and what you are going to make of it. 


I think it's a form of true appreciation of one's self. It's the appreciation given by the owner of the self, the very self that has the highest authority to appreciate before other people do. The self that matters the most.

Library: a walk down the memory lane

You know what, I just got my membership card for a public library. Yay! 


I used to be a member there when I was still in college (and that was more than ten years ago), and I used to visit the library at least once a week.


That was before I was caught up with life; there were always something more important things to do than 'just reading books'. There were always some more important places to go, more important people to meet, more important life to chase. 


I still read books. I never really stopped reading. I couldn't do it. But I never visited the library again. I rarely went to the bookstore. I ordered books online and wait for them to be delivered to my office. I'd stopped having fun the way I used to do with books. To be around them. To walk among the high shelves in the library with tilted head, trying to read all the titles, because, honesty, most of the time I just went there with no specific books or topics in mind. I'd just stroll between the shelves until I find something that caught my interest. 


I usually went there with my sister and we could spend hours, browsing for books from one shelf to another, thinking of which one to prioritize because surely we wouldn't be able to read all the books that interested us within two weeks. And that, was such an important matter to decide.


Sometimes we went the bookstore, both of us were still in college at the time, walking slowly between the stacks of books, stopped every now and then at the title that we found interesting, and, most of the time, wishing that we could buy all the books that we want instead of choosing only one or two books to suit our college student's budget. We would go home dreamy-like afterwards, thinking about all the books that we couldn't buy, feeling sad yet excited to read the new books that we bought. We'd usually stopped by at a coffee shop to immediately open the new books and see what they got to tell us, and continued talking about those lovely books that we had to left at the bookstore. And we would spend our way home in silence, both with nose stuck deep into the book.


It wasn't until last month that I finally decided to register for a library membership again. I still order books online. But to be part of a library, a place where you can walk slowly between hundreds of books, where everyone speaks in hushed voice and thus makes your senses fully concentrate on the letters printed on the side cover, is different.


Now, once a week, I relish the moment when I walk into the alley between the high shelves, looking at those row of books, still with tilted head, but I use the catalog more often now, as I usually only have thirty minutes before the library closed. I'd walked out of the library with the book in my hand, and spend my two-hours trip home with my nose stuck on the book pages. 


It's a pleasant feeling and I'm glad to be feeling the feeling again, though I'm alone now without my sister. And by having said that, I guess I'm going to dedicate this blog post for her. I hope this blog post brings smile on her face the way it does to me :)

breath your dream

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.”

—	Swami Vivekananda

hey you

잘진앤아오

have faith

Don't leave. 
Please.
Stay where you are.
I'm making my way to you.
Little by little
Stroke by stroke
Teardrop by teardrop
Dream by dream
Breath by breath
I'll get there somehow.


Don't leave.
Please.
Just hang on. Even to the smallest thought. The tiniest sign. The furthest impossibility.
Have faith.
That's all I ask of you.
Have faith.


Stay where you are. 
I'll see you there.
I'll be there.




South Jakarta, 11.09 am
#crying 

I cannot give names to it

Hi.
It's me again.
Am watching the dark sky of Jakarta now and wondering how is it going over there.


How does it feel getting closer to fall?
How does it feel, looking at the pale summer sky, feeling the breezing wind at the beginning of autumn?


I always wonder when was it started actually.
Was it when I saw you dancing like crazy?
Was it when I realized how quiet and serene you look beneath the glowing and glamorous fashion?
Was it all real? Or is it just my fantasy?
What is the different now?
This is such a feeling that brings down all the walls between reality and fantasy. Such a feeling that makes you wonder how could people say fantasies are not real.


I cannot give names to it.


What would you call a feeling that gives you a warm sensation creeping down from your chest to your stomach when you think of a particular person?
What would you call a feeling that stretch your heart from head to toe, and stretch it even further, far, far to the furthest impossibility, only with the slightest thought of the person?
What would you call a feeling that always gets you thinking of that particular person when you see a beautiful path with the color of autumn, or a beautiful house with a soft, dim light and a sofa with old cushions, next to a long wooden paneled window looking out to the garden full of trees and flowers? 


Tell me, what would you call a feeling that makes me think of you at the sight of that beautiful serenity of a comfortable, safe place to return to... The images of home...


I cannot give names to it.




Bintaro, Oct 6, late afternoon 
Finally able to finish this after being a draft for about 2 weeks

at my worst

I am at my worst.

The slightest touch makes me want to hit the person who touches me.


The casual conversation felt like the sound of independence day celebration and I want to shriek like a banshee so people can finally shut up. Or just talk silently.


The simplest question felt like an intimidating interrogation and I really have no answer to any of those. Even if it's just something in the line of have I had my lunch or what to eat for dinner.


I can't even make myself to reply the comments on my Facebook.


I am that horrible when I'm having a meltdown.


I can't meet people. I can't be around other people, even if it's my own family. I don't talk and I don't answer questions. Even if I would, it would be very difficult to do. It's as if my brain suddenly functions in different mode. The normal encoding-decoding process somehow just doesn't work. It suddenly uses different encrypting system and anything comes from external felt strange and unintelligible.



I've learned to accept this. I've grown to accept the periodical occurrence and adapt to it.

So here I am now sitting in my room, having a cup of green jasmine tea. One of the few things that can calm me down at times like this.


And as if in cue, I received an email from my boss asking me to do some work tonight, and an invitation from the people in my block for dinner. For certain reasons, both are things I couldn't and shouldn't turn down.








Hasn't it always been like this?
Just when you thought you couldn't go further with your emotional breakdown, such things appear out of nowhere and forcefully pulling you out from your comfortable solitary shell.


But, really, dear Universe, I've nothing against it.


Maybe I'm feeling like dragging myself out of the house right now. But this is nothing, because I'm still alive here, typing my heart out in my comfortable room with a cup of that lovely green tea, a full stomach, and sleepy eyes. 

trying to hold on

I'm trying to hold on,
just waiting to hear your voice.
One word,
just a word will do to end this nightmare


Simba - Lion King




Bintaro, 4.20 am

the day of sighing

They said the things you do while procrastinating, are probably the things you're supposed to do for the rest of your life.




This is absolutely the day of sighing for me.


My chest felt so heavy and I'm feeling like I could break at anytime and cry myself out. I couldn't get rid of that certain thought no matter how deep I drown myself into the works I'm doing. Every now and then the feeling gets too heavy and I'd usually sigh, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes in purpose, to ease my breath a little. I don't really know what it does to my chest, but sighing actually helps it felt a bit lighter, for a brief short moment, before the heavy feeling came back and clench my chest again.


I couldn't stop sighing today. 


I know how annoying it may sound, especially to people in this cubicle, and I really wish I could do something else. Though I always think of sighing as one of the mechanisms to release the negative energy within you, I also believe that to some extent, it affects people around you. The negative energy I release by sighing, transferred to other people nearby. 


I tried to write.
Nothing really came out anyway. Nothing except for these nonsense blabbers.


....


Never before I feel such a feeling that makes me want to exercise like crazy. Maybe I should find some jog tracks or running track somewhere and run and run, run like crazy until I run out of breath. 


I stopped sighing by the time I finished writing this.
I just took a deep sigh, inhaling breath as deep and as much as I can, and exhaling it through my mouth. It helps. And it's soundless. Much safer for everyone.

......*




*that should be read as another blank state of mind*

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit

The first time I read it was in my university's agenda about ten years ago.


I didn't know who wrote this but these are the words that has helped me going through my tough times years ago, back when I was just graduated from college.


I've lost the agenda a year after that, but I never forget the words.


Yesterday, I found them again here and I thought I'd just share it in my blog.


They never fail to boost my spirit, especially the last two lines.
So here goes.


When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.


Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.


Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.


Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.


Blok M, 9.17 am, a restless mind

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

Wounded Soul Knows No Colors

‎"Our history is made of pain and never ending struggle. 
So no, we don't know how to draw a rainbow. Wounded soul knows no colors."

I was browsing through my Facebook newsfeed stream the other day, when accidentally casting a glance to the right part of the screen. I saw the words and thought, whose words are they? So dark and gloomy. And then I saw the explanation below it; said that on that day one year ago, I posted that words in my status.

At first, I was surprised by how strange and distant the words sounded to me, even if it's only one year ago. Then within seconds everything came back to me, the memories, the feeling, the pain. They seemed to be familiar now. 

I wrote the words for someone who has gone through tough times, together with me. I wrote the words in my status box  because I wanted to tell her that it's okay if we're being misunderstood. It's okay if the clouds we're carrying above our head confuse people around us, as much as they confuse us. That's just how it is supposed to be. That's just how we are supposed to be in such times. Misunderstood. 

I wrote the words because I wanted to tell her that I am the one who understands the trouble and the pain she has gone through, as much as she understands mine. I am the one who understands the wound that carved deep within her heart through all the years, as much as she understands mine. I am the one who understands the reasons behind the grey clouds hovering on her life, as much as she understands mine. 

I wanted to tell her that no one, no one else, will be able to understand what we've gone through and that's just the way it is. I wanted to tell her to accept that and live with it, with an open heart. Misunderstood and wounded as we are. The sky is grey now. So we might as well sit and appreciate it rather than desperately paint a broken rainbow. 

But I never told her. All the things I wanted to say. I never told her that. I just didn't have the courage to do so. The wound that we have, it's not something we easily discuss openly, without having to feel how mess our lives are. I think we've been pretending that we're over and done with it. That what happened in the past remained in the past. That we are not carrying our anger within our hearts, walking like a zombie throughout our lives afterwards. We're keeping the wound, rotten in our hearts, thinking that moving ahead and never look back will help us heal. 

I know we never really are.

I posted the words in my status box that day with a hope that she'd read it (she'd read it I'm sure) and understand the meaning behind the words. I could never tell her. 

Honestly, I don't know whether I need to thank Facebook for reminding me about those words. It brought unpleasant memories. But the strange and distant feeling I got when I read it again for the first time after a year, is a sign that I've changed. Right now, I couldn't picture myself posting such words again in my status box. 

I hate to say that I don't know what happen. And to say that I'm much more positive about my life now is probably a bit of an overstatement. Or perhaps I'm just scared that things will start taking the difficult turn again. That's that. I don't know. 

One thing I know is I've learned that embracing the darkness has helped me to get through most of the tough times. I never tried to paint that broken rainbow people had been suggesting me to do all the while back then. I walked with my grey clouds, with the thought that one day when it's time for them to go, I'd be able to sincerely thank them for spending the time with me. And I know I'm preparing for a goodbye to my grey clouds now. I can feel it. 

Bintaro, 10.15 pm

I know she's not okay right now. I wrote this for her, and I'm pretty sure she won't read it. Just like many other things I couldn't tell her back then, this, I can't tell her too.

It finally rained

It finally rained.


It should heals everything.
Wash away the tears and worries.


Please.




Bintaro, 9.20 pm

My Pinterest

I am now officially a Pinterester :)

Keep calm and pin. 
Indeed, pinning does calm you.

don't fall in love with me

Suddenly

I remember what you once said to me

"Don't fall in love with me"

I completely understand now. Yet I love you still anyway.

12.42 pm, during lunch break

suffocated

In the middle of developing a slide, which supposed to be an extract of pages of pages of interview notes. 

Such a paradox.

Developing something by squeezing something.

I'm talking nonsense again.

I'm feeling this gut-wrenching emotions again.

Overwhelmed and suffocated.

Yet I type, and talk, and smile, and laugh, and respond to the world.

Normally.

Normal is overrated.

I'm saying it again.

Normal is overrated for its tendency to rip your heart while struggling for normality in the middle of this overwhelming situation

Normal is overrated for its ability to shut you up and plaster a mask on your face while you're actually yearning to scream and shout and cry your heart out and crawl on the ground and sob and suffocate yourself to be able to free yourself from this overwhelming emotion.

Normal. I just can't be. Not now.

I need to cry. Curl myself on the bed under the blanket and cry. And cry. And cry.

Yet I respond to the world. Normally.

5.04 pm, during office hours, because I couldn't stand it anyomore.

Pinterest and Dreaming

Tumblr is my quiet corner when I need to escape the noise in Twitter and Facebook. And I've been spending more and more time there compared to the other two. It feels quiet there, and even if there are a lot of people in your timeline, it doesn't feel noisy. Nobody seems to bother of what everyone else is doing. When they do, they like, or reblog. Sometimes they ask questions. Yet it doesn't feel bothersome at all.
People are talking in hushed voice there.


And then I found Pinterest.







It feels even more quieter than Tumblr. And I love it.
I haven't dig more but I guess you need to be invited to be able to create an account there. So I guess for now I'd just looking around and enjoy the beautiful things there. 


This one is my favorite, a collection of dreamy bedrooms. 





I have always been having this special interest towards bedrooms interior, ever since I was a little girl. My sister told me that it was because I'm such a sleepy head, and she's probably right. 


But I think it's also because bedroom is something very personal to me, so much that even when my Mom spends more than an hour in my bedroom just to talk to me, I'd actually feel invaded.


And there's something so romantic about comfy bedroom, with clean white sheets and long window looking out to the garden.... I nearly cried while browsing through all the pictures there... 


Uhm, well, okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating. 


Point is, I love Pinterest, and I thank God for whoever posting the pictures of dreamy bedrooms there, because I love bedrooms.

Pinterest is now officially my quietest corner to go to when I need to be alone and dreaming :)




8.15 pm, as usual, it's me, motivated for all the wrong reasons

On the Noise in Social Media

A lot of people say the Internet is a godsend for introverts and I think I have to say that I share similar opinion. What's interesting was, I had always thought that since the Internet allows us introverts to talk easier and considerably a lot more than what we usually do in person, that makes introverts become extroverts when online.

But I found out that that's not the case.

I read an interesting article from Psychology Today about introverts online. This is what the writer (who is an introvert) said: 

I blog, I tweet, I FB. I'm all over the place. But like in the offline world, I have my limits. 

By the end of a workday, FB voices start giving me the same kind of tiredhead I get at a party or after a stretch of face-to-face social engagements. Sometimes I find myself getting annoyed when people comment on my status lines, which is silly. If you're going to be an exhibitionist, you have to expect people to look.

An introvert offline is an introvert online. I don't accept friend requests from everyone on FB (so please don't friend me--though feel free to join me onTwitter ). I take a while to warm to new virtual friends. I hide people who bore me. Sometimes I want Twitter to just shut the hell up. And I prefer not to post on my blogs unless I have something to say. 

So, introvert offline, is introvert online. Nothing changes.

And that is pretty much what I'm feeling right now about the social media out there.

I'm never really into Facebook. I find it too crowded.  I mostly use it only to keep in touch with my close friends. Only close friends, yet, of course, it fails successfully. There are times I kind of lose myself and start typing anything I want to there, mostly unimportant things, and at the end of the day I mentally knock myself on the head, or simply wonder, what would be the best way to make use of this thing because what you've been doing is anything but useful, Self. I'm learning and will keep on learning for this one. 

Twitter, is another story. I rarely check my Twitter these days. For the past month, I only check my Twitter twice a week, and even that felt too much. I couldn't stay there for longer than 15 minutes, before the noise starts getting in to my nerve and I have this urge to immediately shut it down and runaway.

It's still addictive as usual. If I force myself to stay another click, most likely I'd stay there for another 15 - 20 minutes. There's always something interesting to see, inviting links to click, or simply curiosity over not-so-important-but-curiosity-is-curiosity things. 

I don't want to abandon Twitter because I realize that it's still an important source of information. I just need to find the way how to keep up with the (sometimes annoying) noise. 

What I did was I re-activate my Google Reader. It has been neglected for a couple of months because it's too crowded but I managed to trimmed it down to only subscription of blogs. No more news portals. I keep up with the latest news by following the news portals' on twitter, all grouped in my News column in TweetDeck.

In this case, TweetDeck is a lot of help. Whenever I feel I need to check on the news (or something else like the National Geography or Discovery Channel which I put in the "Interesting Stuff" column__yeah I know the name is far from creative), I can directly focus my attention to the relevant column. I don't have to be distracted by the noise in the timeline.

And honestly speaking, I rarely check my timeline lately. Well, there will always be interesting stuffs and information there but sometimes it's just too noisy, and really, most of the times, the information is not that important.  There is also the option of cleaning up my following list, which I've been planning to do actually. But it will take a certain amount of time and energy. Thinking of drowning into that noisy stream again alone has drained me. So in the mean time, I guess this would be the best way. 


Twitter for news updates, and Google Reader for my light readings.


And I'm a happy introvert :)




-7.20 pm, while trying to write something else, and as usual, I came up with something else-