The Year of Realizing Things

I hate that my headline refers to Kylie Jenner's most famous quote of 2016. I hate that I know what Kylie Jenner's (other) famous quotes are. But alas, this is the year of realizing things.

Amazing how a 23-year-old can relate to an 18-year-old reality star, huh?

2016 is notorious for being a series of unfortunate events, and as part of the netizen, I can somehow agree to that. This is the year where so many bad things happen, the good (and great) things are easily overshadowed. As I grew to be more mature and realizing things, I read more about politics and economics this year, and boy do I hate to live in this world even more.

From Brexit to Donald Trump's victory, from Ahok's blasphemy case to the whole intolerance issues growing in Indonesia, I feel like this world, in general, is going south and I didn't even know if we were ever in the north at all!

So yeah, I'm freaking out, a bit.

In terms of personal life, here's a list of things that I just explored in 2016:

- Practiced a bit of yoga this year. Don't love it yet, but heck yeah I enjoy it! This is one of the things I hope to do again in 2017.

- Coming to love salad. I used to have some weird, bitter aftertaste whenever I eat a salad, but now, every now and then, I crave for a bowl of fresh salad with some protein (preferably chicken or salmon) in it.

- Eating chicken wings. I spent the first 22 years of my life not enjoying wings because I have no idea how to eat them, and now it's like my go-to comfort food. I mean, when life gets hard, it always helps to get chicken wings, beers, and a friend who shares the same tendency to whine about life.

- Balancing out my daily intake of caffeine with juice and breakfast of overnight oats. I no longer have breakfast with nasi uduk. Chicken porridge every once in a while, sure. But never nasi uduk. I do have a regular breakfast with a cup of coffee, and then another one after lunch. I don't have tea time. I have coffee time.

- As a result of my daily caffeine intake, I started to lose some good night sleep lately. (Note: It's probably stress and pressure, but I sure hope it's just caffeine)

- Responsibilities are real. It's hard.

I could list down a few more things, but let's just end this list here because otherwise it's becoming a whiny post about things I shouldn't be whining about. Let's just focus on what happened this year:

Okay, so, two of my best friends got married this year, which was really exciting. It's something that I've been waiting for since the beginning of 2016 (haha). I was a bridesmaid twice this year, and next year, I hope I could be a bridesmaid at least once again. It's always amazing seeing how my friends grew to be adults, creating their own families... We were daughters once, and now some of them (and eventually, hopefully, all of us) will have daughters of our own.

I did some traveling this year. First, it was a grand religious journey to the Promised Land and Mecca, as retold at great length here. And then, it was Bangkok; a Southeast Asian capital I actually want to revisit again and again (hi, mango sticky rice). After that, a completely alone, 33-hour stay at Singapore for a vaguely business purpose. And then, it was my first domestic travel in many years (if we don't count my Pulau Seribu trip from 2015) to Bromo, East Java. Yeah, no time to post the last two trips because... well, the holiday to Bromo was great and I did take some photos but I couldn't find the time to think of what to present here, while the solo trip Singapore? I came home sick and still having to come to work the next day, so, really, no time. (It was probably the very long bath I took that night after an exhausting day, or the fasting-at-a-foreign-country thing, or, you know, 33-hour-business-trip-is-not-good-for-you, plain and simple) Here's a post I wrote while waiting 6 damn hours for my flight home at Changi airport alone, to commemorate that visit.

Ultimately, folks, the biggest and another important highlight of my 2016 is this post. Kindness is real. You probably don't think that you deserve it (I still don't, because you know I hate myself) but if you get it, just say thanks. Always remember to be grateful. Don't ask why. Don't question. Quit wondering how you get lucky. It probably won't come so often.

Happy new year!

Craving

The first thing you need to admit is this:

You're lonely.

You like your own company. You enjoy solitary moments thinking about yourself and your favorite things. You strive towards a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. You teach yourself survival skills or find people who can help with things you gave up learning about. You like being alone. You're not exactly good at it, but you're getting better.

But you crave something else.

You crave someone.

You won't admit that your hands are cold and no amount of heat packs could warm it the way his hands would. You don't understand how good it is to let your lips feel his touch; you think you shouldn't know it from the first place so that you won't miss it, but you crave for it. You still won't admit that your life could and would get a little nicer, if you let him in.

You don't understand that you're not that good at being alone. 

Yes, it's probably better than being with someone who only messes up your life. Yes, someone can come into your life just because they choose to. Not everyone in your life will come because they just happen to bump into you somewhere. Someone can choose to be there; if they can figure out where the door is.

My broken bones

More than anything else in the world, I feel like sobbing and break into an ugly cry for two hours while rambling about why I'm so tired and scared and depressed. More than anything else in the world, I know that if I do that--if I do what I feel like doing--it would mean that I'm weak and stupid and not being grateful for what I have.

I know. I tell that to myself all the time.

I don't despise myself, but I am my worst enemy; my biggest weakness, and my harshest critic.

I'm not weak. I know I'm not. I'm probably not as strong as some people are, but by God believe me I've tried. I'm sorry if it wasn't good enough. I've tried to pull myself together and be tougher, put on a greater strength and smile, but it's never easy.

Nothing feels weirder than being in a position that people would kill for, only to feel like you don't deserve it and hate yourself for thinking so low of yourself.

A lot of things feel worse than that, but knowing that you cannot accept your own blessings will make you doubt whether you ever love yourself from the first place.

When I'm Still in Love With You

This is what I have always wanted to tell you:

You're not real. You might live somewhere in an undisturbed corner of my heart that is yet to be discovered, but you're not real. It's supposed to be empty; that spot you call home. You're a fragment of my idea about what it's like to have you, but that's not where you are supposed to be.