Through Sickness and Health

All through this November I, as well as maybe the majority of you, have been working like a dog. There was just too many things to do, what with paperworks and personal life and all that stuff. I have been juggling between my almost non-existent academic life and my messy personal health and being a somewhat part-time soccer mom, watching my friends being out on the field (very, very unlike their usual 'the man who can't be moved' style in the cafeteria). But perhaps what November is all about is probably about learning to know what I want. Because life is always about what I want vs. what I need, and a lot of times, we choose the one that wasn't clearly the right answer. We always invest our time, and money, and power, all in the stuffs we actually can live without. And basically, we never learn to spare some time, or money, or power, for the things that really matter to us. Like health, or personaly hygiene.... or other stuffs. We are always in between something that's so confusing, and like other things, suck. But whether we choose to go right or left, we will always end up thinking, "Maybe I should've looked the other way."

Masalahnya bukan soal terjebak atau bukan. Masalahnya adalah, we dont even know what this is. 

Because everyone needs someone to hold on to

What makes a good friend?

Is it about the amount of time we get to spend together? Or just simply the quality of it?

Is it about the way I listen to your every problems, like you do to mine, and how we discuss it, as if I were Dante and you were Descartes?

Is it about how I stop you from falling in love with that guy, because I sense some kind of threat from him and I don't want you to get hurt?

Or am I good friend because I have let you fall so deep that when you found out the truth, it crushed you pretty bad you don't know if you'll ever recover... but at least now you know?

Because I want you to learn. I want you to find out about things yourself, and not preventing things from happening. I want you to feel happy the way you wish to be; and I want you not to guard your heart or put it in a cage like I do. But more than anything, I want you to live.

Live. The way they say you should be brave: to embrace your flaws, dance in the rain, cry your heart out, fall madly in love... Even if it means you have to do it all in the end. Even if it means you have to learn about things the hard way. Sometimes us mankind were left with no choice other than being the miserable creature that we are. And sometimes we have to just settle with being that.

I don't know what makes a good friend, and perhaps I will never know. It will varies from one to another, because friendship, just like love, is a case by case phenomenon. But just so you know, I'll be here.

I'll be here to listen; I'm not a psychologist so I don't charge for lending you my ears. I'm probably not so good in giving advice, but I'm telling you, I don't judge. Not you. I'm probably going to put the blame on you for some of your problems, but I come in peace; I just want you to know the truth, the logical perspective, the other opinions beside those voices speaking inside your head. Because no matter what they say about listening to those voices, sometimes they weren't meant to be so practical.

I'm going to be here when you fall madly in love with that boy who treats you like you're ordinary. I'm going to be here when he crushed you; when he stops paying attention to you. I'm going to be here when he lets you down, and I'm not even going to say, "Told you so." I'm just going to be here, and pick up the pieces of your heart that won't be this crushed, if only you'd hear me. But don't listen to me anyway. It's your life. It's your game, your rules. I signed up for this. I'm your friend. 

The day I fell in love with your brain

"When I was 4 and ready to read books, I picked up my Dad's collection of Dahl's children stories. Mathilda blew my mind. She was my idea of the girl I'm going to marry: quirky as hell. I keep reading lots and lots of books from his library—his was so full of books it was like the inside of Beast's, you know, of Beauty and The Beast?—until one day I started reading Tolkien. I stopped wanting to read any other fantasy novels since then. I keep reading and reading, fell in love with Hemingway and Vonnegut... and at one point I was very into David Foster Wallace and James Joyce. But up until college starts, I lost track of who's who in literature, it's like New York breeds a new amazing name every week, and then I read Tolstoy. Who's not going to fall in love with War and Peace? It's clearly the most amazing novel I've ever read! Don't get me wrong, I really like Anna Karenina too, who won't? But while everyone thinks she's a miserable married woman, I think she's just naturally a bitch. It's probably just because of my mom being someone else's husband just days after he divorced my dad, but let's not talk about that. Anyway, have you read Dostoyevsky? I first read The Brothers Karamazov when I was in high school, and everyone thought of me as a freak because I finished it in about a week while it took me the whole term to finish The Catcher in The Rye. The thing with Holden for me is simple. I was a teenager, he was a teenager, but only one of us was being a jerk about it, and that's him. And just very recently, I finished Crime and Punishment once again. It's probably my eighth time. Russian novels are brilliant; they give you the kind of narration that's just impossible for people living in the first world like us. They can give you 50 pages description of some girl sleeping, and that's not an exaggeration. Sometimes I wish I were born Russian, blessed with the intelligence to love someone who's going to inspire me to write a novel like Fyodor. Now, I'm calling him by his first name. That's... embarrassing." 

Get A Gun

raison d’être, n. 

I swore I would never have this feeling. I would never have the feeling of wanting to jump off a tall building and see if it would kill me--because nothing else works to make me feel anymore. I swore I would never feel more depressed than Cecilia Lisbon. After all, I survived, being thirteen. But look at all those bullshit. Look at all those stupid youth optimism. Look at me now.

I was wrong. And I thought someone would be there to help me but I was wrong. Again. 

"Friends"

Precious Love

Seven years have passed since I first tearfully sing along to You Give Me Something, finally get the chance to meet James Morrison in person and thanks a lot to Yasmine, we get to take a picture with him. I promised myself that I was going to see some specific artists when they visited Indonesia no matter what happens, be it lonesome or stormy weather, and he was one of those, among Damien Rice and Coldplay and Arctic Monkeys. So it was one of the most beautiful nights in my life. And that's how I know that it's a wonderful world.

An Open Letter to My Virtual Insanity Partner

Hey, you

You know, like I know, that we haven't seen each other for a while. We haven't had a lot of chances to accidentally bump into each other and feel like we're so meant to be. I know that we tried. You tried, and I tried, but it didn't really mean a lot to our friendship. And sometimes I'm sad because I thought we're done, but then we made it; we met, and, we're reminded of the reason why we're perfect buddies: Because with each other, we just feel better.

A lot of the things in life have made me bitter. There's no bigger tragedy of a human being that keep on living, getting older and made bitter by so many things we've witnessed just before our eyes. So many people around me, and not a single one of them made me feel safe about telling my stories; what makes the kind of person that I am today, and where I came from, why I do the things I do, how I deal with things... They didn't know, because they don't deserve to.

But you're different. You make me feel safe. You don't judge me. Or at least your judgements are as insane as I can take, and I appreciate them all. You're just as messed up as I am. You're the same terrible person that I really am, though you don't even try to hide it. You'd rather be seen as you; the intimidating person who speaks your mind than the way people see me: someone who's nice, because I bury my words inside of me and let them kill me.

You're screwed. You're fucked up. But guess what? Me too. And when I tell you my stories, you tell me yours and I feel better. Not because I'm dancing over your misery, but more because I feel like I'm not alone in this depression. You had it too--worse, sometimes. And you're still this cool person who I looked up to. We're very similar in a lot of ways; and in that manner, I feel safe. You know exactly what I feel, because you've been there, and I can learn from you. And at the same time, you can talk to me. I don't spill stories about you. I don't judge you, no matter how insane you are. And I listen. I listen because I'm learning from you. And I know I'm who I am today because of you.

You're my Samantha meets Miranda. And I'm your Carrie meets Charlotte. We're a full team, just the two of us.

Someday we'll be like we used to be. Someday we'll be old and hopefully still equally fun... less fucked up. Someday we'll be a better team. And until that time, you're still the biscuits to my English tea.

Yours truly,

Me.

Noted.

Constellations

The Fault in Our Stars is a beautiful read. Yes, I'm a fan of John Green, but for this once, I'm more of a fan of Gus and Hazel Grace. I love their love, their uniqueness and acceptance of the fact that they're dying. Hazel Grace is a graceful girl, and Gus is an optimistic guy who's not afraid of anything. Their love is good. Their love is beautiful. I always have a thing for Amsterdam. Amsterdam is underrated, but the truth is, the way it is pictured in the book is just... admirable. This book is beautiful. It's a must read, even if you're not a young adult.