Yearly Musing

I am the king of procrastination.

I'd like to escape with the excuse that I have been somewhat updating the other blog while I've been absent from this one, though I'll have to admit it's completely irrelevant. I just ran out of things to say, ran out of things to think, ran out of things to have an opinion on.

All I was left with was a sense of uncertainty about who I was becoming, and a surreal sense of gratefulness for the freedom of choice. For being able to choose, for having so many options.

And yet I was unable to choose yet. 

It's been a year since I left school, uncertain of what I would become. I could have been anything, but I didn't find in me the willpower to be anything. I rather liked lying in my bed reading, and pretending the world didn't exist. I think I can spend eternity doing that. That, and the occasional walk outside to lie in the summer sun, trying to avoid lying on grass directly. And the breeze, the breeze that felt like an empowering push in the summer, the breeze that hits your face when you ride your bike down the slope. Unlike the cold, bitter air that numbs your legs when you ride in winter, and leaves you stumbling once you get off your bike.

I liked eating inside the house, and having things delivered without a second thought. And somehow, somewhere in between that lazy weekend, and now, those lazy weekends turned to lazy weeks, and lazy months. 

And I didn't want to go anywhere, because then I'd have to think. Then I'd have to formulate my own thoughts when I was perfectly content with stealing quotes from other places and gorging myself with readings instead of real conversations. Then I'd have to think about where I want to go, and what I want to do when I was perfectly content with not knowing, and blaming my laziness on my being lost, not the other way around. Then I'd have to think about the future, and my life and where I was going and how I was going to eat, when I didn't think I'd have a future to begin with.

In the midst of convincing myself that I was content, I started contemplating suicide.

I started to be stuck in the solitude I created for myself. I avoided the sun, and the rain, and the wind. I started closing my blinds more, and never opening them. I would lie in bed until sundown again, and be out just to convince everyone I was fine. I thought I was fine. 

Everything felt surreal. I got disconnected from reality, choosing to pretend that it will never happen. Choosing to pretend that I don't need to live in reality. And if I couldn't get away with it, I suppose I can always jump off a ledge somewhere. 

I started wondering if my shower head would hold against my weight. Or if I could somehow find the courage to jump off somewhere. I started hoping the planes I was on would crash. 

It doesn't get better. 

Sometime that summer, I started believing that depression was a real condition. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I always believed that sheer willpower would save us, but now I didn't know where willpower came from. 

Maybe I was coddled too much. Maybe I was burnt out. Burnt out from what, I'll never know.

Maybe I was becoming someone I didn't want to admit I was becoming, and so I started to pretend it wasn't happening. If I close my eyes, it'll be gone. Just like the monsters under your bed and in your closet, I tried to pull the blanket over my head and wish it away.

It didn't go away. 

I told lies through the teeth. And smiled, and pretended it was fine. I said I was fine. I said I liked it here because I didn't see any other way. Because you said I can make it if I wanted to, even if I didn't like it. I didn't want to be here, I didn't want to be anywhere. 

.

So I said I was fine. 

I watched myself become like the people I mocked and hated and insulted and wished away. And I said I was fine, and you believed I was fine because you knew I mocked and hated and insulted these people, so you thought I was fine. 

I pulled the blanket over my head and turned the lights off. I stopped going anywhere. I forgot meals. I ignored texts and calls. I stopped reading. 

I don't know how time passed, but it did. And somehow, I screwed up enough to have to leave. 

And maybe it's a blessing, or not. I didn't understand at that point, because nothing seemed real yet. Nothing seemed like it would matter, because there was no future that would make it matter. I no longer had anything to say, to read, to do. I didn't want anything, I didn't care. 

Everything that would've set my thoughts and heart aflame had died out, and I stopped believing in anything. I started becoming a recluse, a sensitive one. I burst into tears when I watch sad movies, because maybe I felt like I could relate. I felt like I needed to reach out to God, to someone, but I had pushed everyone away and told them I didn't need them. Because I believed I was stronger than this, and I made them believe the same.

Most of us are lucky enough to never experience a breakdown. Some of us are lucky they have. I don't know. Whatever makes you stronger, I guess.

I don't know how people live with uncertainty. It must be scary. I regained my feelings a little more every day since I came back. And somehow I don't remember much of my time in that lonely room. I remember bits and pieces, but maybe because nothing ever happened, I don't remember much. I probably wasted a lot of time doing nothing, and I stopped growing at one point. 

I'm still uncertain, but somewhat certain that I will have willpower someday. Enough to overcome any uncertainties, enough to be certain in at least myself, if not everything else. I'm at least certain that I can do anything I want to do. But I don't know how, I don't know what I want to do, or if I'll ever want to do anything that much.

But at least I stopped staring at the shower head like it's a noose. And I stopped staying in my room. 

I don't know how I could've stayed in my room then. Now I can't stand being alone. Maybe making up for lost time, maybe trying to regain feelings. I started to have opinions again, and believing in things. I started wanting to do something, though I still struggle in following through with my plans. 

It's been a year since I left school. Since then, I've worked in three different places, with different people and different tasks. I've gone abroad for a short program, and travelled more around the country. I've learned a lot of things outside my room, and stopped being so antisocial again. I started going out again. I started to want to meet new people. I started conversations, and I started to read again. I finished my portfolio. I bought new books to read, and started trading books again with my friends. 

I kept a notebook of the things I learned. I keep a planner. I wrote out life goals, and monthly goals. I followed through some of the goals. I entered a design competition, though I didn't take it seriously once I started sketching, and lost. I talked to people I consider mentors. I went to festivals. I fell and skinned my knee. I got a puppy, which then died. I got another dog, and he's since learned to go up the stairs. I learned how to park my car.

I went to exhibitions alone, and made friends with random people. I went biking in the park. I watched a movie in an outdoor park. I walked around town until my legs hurt. I tried to join a history club. I went to Paris twice. I bought the bag I've been eyeing since high school. I started wearing a watch. I gained a bit of weight. I tried to run in the morning and failed after a week. 

I started praying every night. I started budgeting my allowance. I opened a bank account. I bought the markers I've wanted since middle school. I started painting again. I keep a blog of ideas. I started cooking with friends in town. I organized my bookmarks. I organized my clothes, which lasted for a week. I started having goals, I started having people I wanted to meet, and things I wanted to do.

I started living outside my own world. I started living my life. 

And I have a lot of people to thank for that. 

I want to say I have willpower, or at least a little more than I used to. I feel like I've been saved, though I don't know if I'll fall again. I don't want to, it's a slow murder creeping over your thoughts until whoever you are slowly dies off. 

But I learned a lot. I learned who I really didn't want to become, and how easy it was to let myself go. I learned that depression is real. I learned that I wasn't as strong as I thought I was.

But I also learned that I can change. I have choices, and I am grateful for them. I have control over the things I want to do, though I struggle with myself. I have things I want to do, and choices about how I want to do them. I have control over the things I feel, and I shouldn't let it get the better of me. I may change again, and I may do different things in the future, and love different ways. Because I'm what I make of myself, and as long as I have a temporary destination, I have a direction. I'll never know where I'll end up, but I know I can steer towards a place. 

In the end, I'm still left with was a sense of uncertainty about who I was becoming, and a surreal sense of gratefulness for the freedom of choice. But that's no longer all I have left. 

You are // More poetic nonsense

You are the rain
that wets my skin
and leaves me cold.
You touch what clings to my skin,
like water,
you stick to it,
you resemble it
in the rain.
Staring me down like
a cloud overhanging
or a tree over-shading,
or the wind that
makes my hair stand on their ends.
You stick like water,
drip down
and flutter like the breeze.

Like the blessing
that raises trees
and crops
and rivers,
you raise a field in me.
You are a root,
you are a tree,
and I am the soil,
I am the grass.
The gale.
You are a gale
in the rain,
you envelop me.
And we are skin to skin
wet to wet
cold to cold,
clinging to what is left of you,
of me,
of us,
drying in the rain.

aflame

i don't need flowers
tulips wilt
i don't need your
feelings on paper
the ink fades
and paper burns
so easily ashen
like my skin
set aflame
doused by fear of losing
holding you somewhere
captive in my heart
and set free in my eyes
you set me apart.
you stop me
when i walk towards you
and pull me
when i leave
and i crumple
like dried leaves on your feet
begging
pleading
write me
love me
wreathe me in flowers
wreathe me in your fingers
wreathe me
until i wilt
and burn
set aflame
upon your lips.

Blogging Woes

I realized that lately my blog posts have been replaced by all sorts of crappy poetic nonsense. I'd like to apologize, mainly to myself, for misusing my outlet.

Initially, I started writing this blog when I decided to major in journalism. Realizing that my opinionated writings had no place in my journalism classes, I still felt that I had to somehow develop my viewpoint and opinion somewhere. Hence, the creation of this blog.

I started out with commenting on othet blog posts, mostly about more neutral things like clothes, technology, architecture and k-pop. (Admittedly, k-pop has avid followers and equally passionate haters, so it might be a bit difficult to categorize it as "neutral"). However, the more I got into reading articles to compare biases in the media (which we were studying in class), I started trying to apply these concepts to analyze the articles I'm reading from the Indonesian media. This resulted in a bunch of immature hate posts against the religious/racial division in Indonesia being further exacerbated by the use of selective truth in the media, depending on ownership. I didn't figure out until much later that my pointing out the differences between these medias did nothing but divide my country into a bunch of race and beliefs, instead of emphasizing on the unity we should have as people of the same country. Later on, when I started taking a women studies class, I started to write posts on the lack of weight of women rights in Indonesia. Despite the fact that I found a sound topic I was passionate about, I was still basically just writing hate posts supported by the fact that I am a woman and no real knowledge on the situation.

By this time, I realized that I'll never make a good journalist if all I do is be a fangirl or a hater. As much as my thoughts might have grown slightly more mature thanks to writing my thought process out in the form of this blog, I couldnt produce any good writing that made sense after a few months.

Instead of writing about a truth I have yet to attain, I returned to writing prose and nonsense that I thought would make me sound somewhat deep. Maybe it was also triggered by my turning twenty and questioning at what age I might perchance find my true love, or if I have actually found him. Maybe.

While I figured out that my writing nonsense-meant-to-be-poems were pretty much useless to the advancement of my career, I also figured out that if I stay like this I'll never get anywhere with the blog.

Right now I'm in the middle of trying to repurpose my blog as a good representation of who I want to be. I haven't found who I want to be yet, but I figured if I continue to write my obnoxious opinions up here I might either find out what I really like and what I really don't like.

So, what I'm going to try to do from now on is to write about issues I'm concerned about, whether that be analyzing the media with my shallow knowledge, or writing about social issues as discussed by books that inspire me, etc. Hopefully I can do this regularly. Right now I have a stack of books to read at home that I hope will make me a better person, and a better writer.

Stick with me.

The Taste of Goodbyes

I wonder what makes goodbyes bitter, or what makes them sweet. What makes them taste like anything at all?

Do memories taste sweet? The scent of the sea, the memories of an idealized yellow-tinted sunlight where you basked and laughed and thought that the world couldn't be more perfect? The whirring of bicycle wheels, the smell of popcorn as you hold hands over dirty cinema seats. Sticky palms when you hold hands too long on a hot summer's day, the creak of the old swing in the shade of the porch. Or is it in the anticipation, the anticipation of your happily ever after?

People walk away. You walk away. I walk away.

And what of the anticipation of a goodbye? Could you, perhaps, feel that in the air around you, the fear slowly closing on your lips, your throat?

What we must speak on, we speak none of. You smell goodbye; you smell it like the dry itch of winter's advent, and the rustle of the coming clouds. You feel it in the the tick of the wall-clock as you pass the night away, pass the night awake. With the fear of being alone.

You fear it like a shadow and you spit it out. The taste of sweet, the taste of the sun, the taste of lips, the taste of sweat. And all you are left with in your mouth is your own words, tasting like nothing on the tip of your tongue.

Your tongue is numb.

Does that make it bitter? To lose the taste of sweet-- dissipated by the bitter fear, the bitter effort of keeping your head up without seeing into another pair of awaiting eyes, the bitter echo of empty words. Of empty promises that you know you cannot keep. That he cannot keep.

You watch yourself crumble and stick yourself together with honey, with whatever notion of sweetness you can salvage from the memories you keep. Then suddenly, you start minding the hot summer sun, the sticky sweat on your palms. You cling to the happily ever after you see on TV. You cling to the eyes that don't see you, and feel the gaze stare away, stare through.

Your senses dull themselves away to create a husk, a husk made of glass. A breakable husk, a see-through husk. You could see through yourself better than anyone else. He could too, if only he were looking.

You anticipated a goodbye. You convinced yourself otherwise.

You paint a picture of nectar and end up with the smell of shit.

You start to notice the smell of sweat, the roughness of skin, the bristles of hair that disturb your proximity. You start to notice the discomfort of the joints under you, beside you, holding you, tearing you apart. You notice his sunken eyes, his breath when he's drunk, the crookedness of teeth, the bent nose.

You start to stare at the lips you kiss. You keep your eyes open, in fear that he would run. Run, like you want to do now.

What do you taste now?

You taste goodbye rolling on the tip of your tongue, like nothing, like air, like water. You set fire to nothing, and douse whatever is left hanging with your love. No, your fear.

Nothing tastes sweet anymore. And yet it is not bitter. All that is left for you is the numbness of your tongue, your lips and your fingertips.

All that is left is the anticipation of goodbye, slowly boiling in your empty sky.

A very late happy new year to everyone; which is, in the words of a friend, a piece of communal happiness we all share.

Rape Victims are Victims (2)

In a quick follow-up to my previous post, I found this published yesterday in the Jakarta Post:

"The mother of the 14-year-old girl raped by alleged human traffickers that she met on Facebook wants Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh to apologize for his statements on the case.

The mother of the girl, who has only been identified by her initials SAS, said on Tuesday her daughter had suffered a setback after the minister said she may have consented to sex and then claimed rape.

“My daughter was a victim, not an active participant. The family has agonized over this incident, and then the minister’s comment aggravated [our suffering],” the mother said during a press conference at The National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) in Jakarta.

Nuh told reporters last week that cases of teenage rape were sometimes the fault of the victims. “They do it for fun and then the girl alleges that it’s rape.”"
 

 I'm assuming this is another case of rape (another minor, I think), but the fact that the Education and Culture Minister, who is responsible for the education of children and instilling the moral standards of our culture, can say that she wasn't a victim is messed up. Sure, there have been cases where girls have pretended to be raped to frame men, or to gain attention. There have been cases too where minors have claimed rape after what they regarded as consensual sex. But isn't that why we have a minimum age? Isn't that why sex with a minor is illegal anyway, because they're not mentally ready to give their consent? Isn't is considered rape anyway?

For a high-ranking government official to publicly question a rape victim, especially a teenage one, is just a show of how twisted our society is. Rape isn't the fault of the victim, that's why they're called a victim. People, especially girls, treasure their own body more than material things. Then why is a robbery victim not at fault for the robbery that happened to them while a rape victim is at fault? Why is someone who was stupid enough to get scammed through the internet considered a victim, while rape victims are marginalized? 

How can a grown man considered educated and cultured enough to be a minister publicly announce to the press that a young girl, one whose story he probably doesn't even know in detail, is at fault for getting raped? What kind of reaction does he expect from the public? Did he not think it through that she will be marginalized in her community because he implied that she was a slut? 

Men in Indonesia do not know the feeling of being labeled a sexual deviant because it's acceptable for men to be sexually active. They think of women who are sexually active as sluts. And yet this one man can so easily label a young girl a slut, while knowing subconsciously how her society will see her. 

As an Education and Culture Minister, his words are bound to have some weight. His statements are considered credible. But such a thoughtless man, who doesn't even consider the weights of his words, how can we trust him with the education of our country's children?