Thursday, November 25, 2021
I don't think I have written a post this immediately after something happened to me and here I am doing it now and my heart is still racing. I really need to calm down. So what had happened was, just over 1 hour ago I was locked out between my room and the front door without my phone. I will not elaborate on how my current living situation is right now, but basically there was no one to help. I prayed that by some miracle God will help me open the door as I stupidly tried the handle many times. Stupidly I said because I'm sure me trying repeatedly will not help. I somewhat shouted help help but no one heard and came and then after some time a neighbour who I don't know of passed by on her way to work and I said please help me. This lady, Kelly K, was like the miracle from God. In my panic I don't think I explained myself well other than can you please google a locksmith and help me because I'm locked out. She's a miracle because not only did she stop, she actually had a locksmith she used before and she's one of those people who's super efficient and I think quite social. She quickly set it up and said locksmith coming in 20 mins and then took photo of the front door and asked me to take photo of my door and settled everything for me. There's concern that the locksmith needed to actually change the lock handle and I'm really not good with stress, I'm panicky and pitiful and she helped relayed my concerns and after looking at the photos the locksmith kindly said no lock would be changed. So all's good and Kelly had to go for her meeting and I waited. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for Kelly. Then locksmith came, the way he dealt with the front door was eye-opening. Then he dealt with my door and all and all it took around 10 mins and 70 dollar - a bit pricey but I am dumb and this current living place is just such a doom for me so what else there is to say. I'm just thankful all is solved. Luckily as well, mobile phone banking works after such long disruption yesterday and I could still pay the man.
When Kelly finished helping me and left, I was thinking it was like a miracle. God sent someone to help me and someone who actually knew a locksmith and overall I was locked out for just over an hour. Considering I could have been locked out for hours and hours without food or water, that is pretty short. Kelly even offered her phone asking if I wanted to call anyone and like all the stupid people in this age, I don't know any phone number except for 2, my home phone number and my aunt's home phone number back in Indonesia and what good will that do. A lot of thoughts came, like how it's super important to have neigbours you trust enough with your keys and as much as I tend to criticize how I think many people are not close with their neighbour in Singapore, I realize at this moment there's no neighbour back in Jakarta whom my mom entrust with our key. It's not like we cannot count on them on super emergency but I think it's because we have aunt and uncle nearby, they have our keys and will always shelter us. Gosh how I miss having aunt and uncle nearby to help. So I was thinking as I was waiting, what is the lesson to be learnt here God? You'll always help me, you'll bail me out always. As I thought that, I also thought it would be nice if I didn't get locked out in the first place though. As I wrote that, I think maybe God's response to that is well don't be stupid then. I was doing things without thinking, without paying attention and that's why I was in an almost catastrophic shit. Things could have been worse. I could have been a student needing to do an exam for example or I could have been someone needing medication, like insulin or inhaler. I wasn't any of that and praise be to God, He helped me and let me out fast. My heart has stopped racing and I think I need to be more mindful in the things that I do now.
:) eKa @ 1:50:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, November 12, 2021
I wrote 2 drafts for this post and both of them are negative in tone. They talk about something that I can't really talk about right now other than I am shit scared about it. It doesn't seem fair and of course far from enjoyable to read me unloading my fear without context, so I will try to step away from all that for the time being and write about things that I recently watched.
I haven't talked about movies I watched in a long time, but there were some times in the past few months were I had some free time and I ended up filling them watching movies. Here are some of them. I think aside for Dune which I was really interested to watch, the rest I watched because I had some free time and wanted to just go out.
- Dune - It seems it was released in Singapore way earlier than in America. I watched it in a big hall with like less than 10 people in it and so I ended up feeling dead cold and couldn't concentrate and wished it would end faster. It was cinematographically interesting and I'm sure there will be sequels, but for this part 1 I guess I'm kinda frustrated because what this Timothée Chalamet's Paul supposes to do, that part is not clear to me and so I need more and yet at the same time the movie is already pretty long.
- The Green Knight - It has many beautiful interesting scenes. I'm not familiar with the poem it's based on and in the end, I don't know if I like the story much, like what is the point of all this. That being said, it is beautifully shot and that makes for an interesting watch.
- Werewolves Within - I would normally give this kind of movie a miss but I had a free time to fill and there's Sam Richardson whose character in Veep is loveable and he's playing another lovable guy here. Side note: his stint in Ted Lasso was interesting funny :D For this movie, I would just say it's okay.
- The Last Duel - I think I start to like Adam Driver a lot because he's kinda an actor actor and not an actor celebrity and he chose interesting movies to be in. This movie tells the story of an alleged rape from the point of view of 3 people; the 2 person in the act and the husband of the woman being raped. Watching it, I would say it's clear it's a rape though I read it's based on a real event and people are still unsure if it was rape. So basically then the husband (Matt Damon) and the alleged rapist (Adam Driver) need to fight it out in a duel. I would just say I think it's an okay movie.
As for TV. I finished watching all the 5 seasons of The Wire and I like them a lot. Season 1 gave me like a Law & Order feel but as it progressed, I was pretty invested in the story. I couldn't relate with the very violent drug world. On the other hand, seeing the bureaucracy and staff in the police department, school system, mayor office, newspaper, well all of those are just so relatable because I guess the same things happen everywhere all over the world - the fight to chase numbers in stats, how achieving certain numbers is seen as improvement, how one would change or create the metrics they need to get the numbers they want, and how the effort to do all this reporting eclipses the actual work or how the work that actually is good work is not being appreciated or even axed because it doesn't serve the numbers or the upper people. I think there's people in every country in this world who gets this. Thinking about it more, I wonder if the criminal world is actually the real meritocracy. You can't bullshit your way into power there, you have to show true result. Anyways, if ever they will do another round of The Wire, I'll be down to watch that.
Some of the things I currently watch include The Morning Show. I don't particularly like what they did to Steve Carell's character this season, sigh. I guess it's because we saw him trying to do good. I have to remind myself that hold on, his character did many bad things. It's interesting that I think they are trying to explore what being cancelled is like and if there's any way one can get back to the good graces of people. Are there mistakes too big that you cannot get back? Is it fair to expect forgiveness and acceptance? I wonder where the story is going to go. Another thing I'm watching is Impeachment: American Crime Story which tells the story of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal centering more on Monica Lewinsky's side of thing. It does make me feel a little bit sympathetic towards her but then she did wrong and through it all, I think the person who is so unfairly damaged is Hillary Clinton. This is a lady who is truly capable and yet this event, which is not her fault at all, has stained her forever. Seriously I don't know why there are people who can't be sympathetic towards Hillary, this is a lady who had to go through something so embarrassing but onwards she rises up and marches on. She is actually very impressive and that is admirable.
:) eKa @ 10:06:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, October 01, 2021
I'm still feeling very bleak, so you can stop reading if you feel tired hearing me. I can't wrap my things around the fact that things are not working out for me. Things that I tried meet me with silence - it's like God is saying, no, not this door. I am saying this fully aware that my so called effort is far from exhaustive. 2 failures out of 2 attempts are just common right, but I just feel so dejected. Right now I feel trapped and I feel like there is no exit for me, there wouldn't be a place out there for me to go to.
Recently this bible verse came to me - James 1:6, But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. Side note: my Christian education drilled a song that allows me to remember the sequence of the books in the new testament in Indonesian, but I couldn't figure out what James is in Indonesian, so had to google it out and found out it's Yakobus. Anyways, that bible verse describes me really well. Along with that verse there's a short reading that said something along the line that if you have faith that God has taken care of your issue, then you should have peace and serenity because it's like a done deal. Reading that, I was struck by the fact that yeah I have lost all faith. Really if I have to be honest, I don't have any faith. The bible also says lean not on your own understanding, but time and time again I whirled in my own thoughts and again and again it shows it does me no good. When you're in trouble, you think of God and here I am pleading with God. All those years in Christian school really leave an imprint on me that when I think of God, it's mostly in the Christian way. That being said, my stubbornness is still holding me back from submitting completely and I can just imagine all those Christians out there saying, so how do you expect God to help you if you're not going to surrender to Him? I don't know, I'm just hoping He be merciful to me.
Since I am in my head a lot, I can tell you there are a lot of negative thoughts. There's anger at people who I perceive as to not be understanding of what I'm going through, who easily say have you considered this and that. The other side of my head tells me of course they don't get it, they're not in your shoes. They don't talk to you on a daily basis, they don't even see you. Even people who sees you everyday (like mom) may get bored with your issues and your lack of effort. There's also jealousy on other people who I see as having it easy in life, like their life is taken care of; they don't have a clue on how to live like me, but then as I think like this, the other side of my head says as much as you can point to people having it better than you, you can just easily point to people having it worse than you. You're not a woman under Taliban rule, that alone makes you extremely fortunate. There is a lot of self-pity. I need to lift myself and make an effort to fix my situation, but I feel so paralyzed (mostly by fear) that I don't know what to do. I feel miserable here and yet I feel this is it, I am trapped, there's no way out, even though there is. There is a way out, but I feel scared that it will be another trap so I need God to show me the right door, to tell me it's alright to walk through and get out :'(
:) eKa @ 7:25:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, September 03, 2021
Functional On The Outside, Turmoil On The Inside
Before I wrote this post, by chance I happened to read a random post I wrote in 2009 where I wrote: I realize that I have issue with stress, sadness, and fear. All these negative feeling do paralyze me often but last weekend when I decided to just surrender it all to God, I realize that I can also just be positive and be happy. So 12 years later, no I still can't deal with stress, sadness, and fear and all those negative feelings do paralyze me terribly. I also can't believe that girl who wrote that she could just be positive and happy, like when have I ever? It does make me think that there are always bigger issues. What issue did that 27-year old girl face? I couldn't even remember. I know for sure she wouldn't want what I'm having right now. I have a real freaking problem now. In some posts back, I wrote that my body did something strange during the time when I had to move. The strangeness didn't go away and it's stressing me out even more, so I went to the doctor and blood test and scans confirmed I have something that shouldn't be there. The day I found out I cried my eyes out. Not because I had these abnormal things, but because I have to deal with it alone. It took quite some times to somewhat calm down, but when mom called I just cried again even before I told her what happened. Mom told my cousin who has experience with this and hearing her, I realized I wasn't in awe enough with what she has to go through. Even now I feel my cousin is so tegar (seriously there's no equivalent english word, the closest is mentally strong). She told me to be ikhlas about it (again there's not quite an equivalent in English, closest is just to let it go) and surrender to God so that my heart can be light about it *sigh* This week I went to the doctor again to find out what we should do. The problems are big, bigger than I would have like and I am hung up on that. This is despite of the somewhat good news of the doc opting for the conservative approach of waiting and then reviewing it again after 6 months unless I get massively worse before that. I think she sensed that I'm alone here and it might be hard for me mentally and physically to undergo the last option without any support system. She told me not to stress out because as my cousin said this happens to other people too and there is a solution for this, even though we may not like the solution. While some people (like mom) would react positively to what the doc said, I just can't really be that calm. I may appear functional on the outside, but inside there's a lot of turmoil and I'm really not calm at all.
As I pray to God, I told Him that there are so many things that I need to ask. I just feel I have a lot of problems, like I really really need to get out of my current living situation. In light of this medical issue I'm having, I feel getting out of this place is becoming even more pressing :( I feel so stuck because I'm not seeing ay good affordable options out there. To narrow down my problems to a single wish to be fulfilled is hard and I try to cheat by asking God to please let everything be alright, but that doesn't feel right, it's like I'm greedy. I've read it all and I heard it all, like you are deserving of the blessing but somehow, maybe it's my lack of faith, I'm not believing it. I feel there will be no miracle and it will just be all hard on me. This is not going to be easy despite of how much I wish it to be. Some people will argue that this is the miracle. Things can be way way worse and right now we're not there. I guess since the pessimistic me is convinced the path will be hard not matter what, all I need to remember is that I will be able to do this because no matter how hard it's going to be, God is going to be there too *sigh* I'm really not in a good headspace right now, even more so than usual. I hope it's not the case for you. I hope your days are glorious.
:) eKa @ 9:17:00 PM • 0 comments
Monday, August 02, 2021
I finished reading The Dutch House by Ann Patchett and I quite enjoyed it. It tells the story of a brother and sister who were very close who lived in a grand Dutch house. In my mind, this house was awesome. Their mother found the house to be excessive and left them when they were young. As much as it's unfathomable that a mother would leave two very young kids, when I imagine if I could ever live in such a big majestic house, I myself find it rather strange and concede it may not be a good fit for me though I do want a big garden. Monet's house and garden in Giverny would be the dream. Anyways, their father remarried and when their father died, their stepmother threw them out of the house. They went from being rather rich, living in a big house, to being a commoner. The book tells the story of their lives before and after losing the house and all through it all they leaned on each other, ride or die. It makes me sad that I have noone that I can call my ride or die, but then a little thought came that maybe I don't have one because God don't think I need one, that my life is not that hard? Still, it would be good to have one, no? The book ends in a reconciliatory way, like forgiveness or the passage of time would really take away bitterness. It takes a long time though and at the same time sometime maybe it doesn't because in the chapters before last, a sad thing happened and it also made me think, no, a long time can pass but sometime some things cannot be okay and it is better, or at least for the aggrieved person, to not have to be forced to be okay with everything. It's okay I guess if we cannot let go of everything. People who are not in our shoes do not know the turnmoil and sorrow that we have to endure, so who are they to ask? I know it's always good to forgive and forget, but I tend to be unable to do those.
Moving on to things I watched. I watched the French tv series, Lupin and I found it rather good. It's inspired by the french stories of Arsène Lupin, a gentleman thief. I wanted to read the stories after watching Lupin, but as evidenced by my poor french when watching it, in which I needed subtitle, I don't think I can read the stories in french. Lupin starred Omar Sy who I already knew from watching Intouchables, which was extremely good. The American re-make, The Upside with Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston wasn't that good even though I like both actors. After Lupin I thought I should watch another foreign thing and settled with the Italian, Summertime. My Italian is also bad so I couldn't make it without subtitle either. I think I'm too old for Summertime which tells the stories of barely adults and their love lives. There are many moments when I rolled my eyes, but I made it all through season 1. As much as 1 or 2 characters are kinda lovable, it's just the stories really make me unable to sit through season 2, so I didn't continue. Summertime has a lot of good Italian songs in it though and I think that is the strong point for me. Now, I am watching Luther. I'm not one who's into Idris Elba hype or even understood it, but after watching Luther, I get it now. I'm only in season 2 now, but with so many violent crimes, I wonder if it's the reason for my crime nightmare last night.
:) eKa @ 8:24:00 PM • 0 comments
Thursday, July 22, 2021
Hey guys, how have your covid-filled days been? Don't want to talk about it? I get you. Something scary happened to my family and even I, I'm not ready to talk about it. I don't know if I will be. The only good news is I've gotten my second dose of the vaccine though it's not that official yet in the eye of the government, since here in Singapore you're only acknowledged as really done 2 weeks after your second dose. It is rather strange for me seeing the different rules being applied in different countries. I watched Stephen Colbert and when he went back to his theatre with live audiences, it's just so unthinkable that it's full capacity and people are not wearing masks. Here in Singapore, I don't know what metrics need to be achieved to let go of the masks. We just started another stricter restriction today that will last for around 1 month due to new clusters forming and rising cases. The number of new cases may not cause other countries or cities to be that alarmed but here in Singapore, well we lose dining-in privilege. I guess I should be thankful that cinemas can still be open though you can't have your popcorn. On the opposite spectrum of strictness, there's Indonesia who's doing a piss-poor job in enforcing restriction I have to say. The number of cases and deaths make people like me pissed and yet the so called restriction, whose implementation is questionable, will only be extended for 1 week and then we'll wait and see. I wonder if the government are like just looking at numbers instead of all the heartbreaking suffering. Because if you look at the number, Indonesia is actually not in the top 10 countries with the most covid cases and deaths and in terms of percentage of the population, there's only about 1% of the population who got covid and if you compare this number to the US for example, there's around 10% of the population who got covid there. So maybe that's why the Indonesian government still say things are under control?
I am in favor of more restriction with stricter enforcement in Indonesia but hearing how the lower income people are losing their livelihood due to the restriction, well maybe I am quite disconnected with how life is in Indonesia or Jakarta where I'm from. I don't know how things are going to unfold in Indonesia. Will there be herd immunity? That will be good, but what if as some people fear, there's a new mutation that causes the virus to be more contagious and deadlier? *sigh* Who knew it will be this long and I don't want to think this way but if it can be this long, who to say that this time next year we're not still in it?
I'm sorry guys if all this sounds so negative *sigh* As usual, I haven't been doing anything interesting. I did somehow got it in my head to use Adobe Fresco to try watercolour painting. Okay, I can't recall if I wanted to try watercolour painting in Adobe Fresco or I just wanted to try watercolour painting and remembered that I have Adobe Fresco and so to try it there first. All and all, I watched and watched YouTube videos of people doing watercolour painting of flowers and it looks really nice and yet when I tried in Adobe Fresco, I failed and failed. These 2 are the ones that are kinda somewhat decent after many attempts and I have yet to learn how to do any flower properly. I don't know if I would fare any better doing watercolour with actual brush, probably not.
:) eKa @ 9:09:00 PM • 0 comments
Friday, June 18, 2021
I finally finished reading the first book this year, The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I found this book too smart for me, like I'm not adequately smart enough to understand it :( The story didn't fit what I expected when I read the book jacket. It tells the story of a guy whose parents are two psychologists. The guy is a champion debater in high school and a lot of the passages talk about debate and its strategies and how the strategies are also employed by politicians these days. He and his parents have alternating chapters. The parents being that they are psychologists also talk about smart things in their chapters. It made me think of how different life is if your parents are highly educated and live in a white collar world. It made me realize that it's not something that I can relate with. Along with the chapters of these 3 different view points, there are also short chapters of the guy's childhood friend who's like an outcast but then suddenly was included in their high school group, but it didn't work out in a really bad way and the last we see of this "friend", he was a Trump-er. Yes, the story is quite contemporary. It's one of Obama's favourite book in 2019 and that kinda makes me think even more that I'm not smart enough for this book. I can't say I enjoy it much. Maybe if I have read it in another circumstances when my life is not in disarray and my mind is not all over the place, then maybe I could have liked it more, or maybe no matter what, I'm really not that smart. So that's book 1. I'm pretty sure we're not gonna reach 5 books this year. It'll be good if I can complete 3. Next, I think I want to read Ann Patchett's The Dutch House.
So life, how has yours been going? To say that my life is going bad is utterly ungrateful, so I'll say it's not ideal. The last time I wrote, I wrote about my new living situation which I just want to say is actually going bad. A lot of people will say it's not so bad, but it's bad for me and here I am, I have to last. There are other things that are not going well either. Health wise, one part seems to be better but I'm not sure, but even if that part is going well, there's another thing that's torturing me and I have yet to go to the doctor since I couldn't find the time, so I just have to endure :( The only good thing is perhaps I finally got vaccinated. Only first dose so far, didn't feel feverish but the soreness was immediate within 5 minutes for me. If I think about how things are not going as I want them to be, I'll get very depressed. My mom keeps telling me that I need to change, that I need to deal with things not going my way, that I can't have things go the way I want them to be, that everyone can't be fitting into what I want. She annoys me so much when she says this, but today I realize that I perhaps have issues with this. I'm not saying that I will try to find a way to bend. In fact I think I'm inherently unable to bend or the nicer word some annoying people like to use, be flexible. The issue with this way of thinking is that most of the time, there's only one outcome for me and that is to get out. Thoughts like this really depress me because what am I going to do. I feel so directionless in life and writing and admitting that is really embarrassing but it is what I feel. Too much turnmoil in me :( As such, I do hope that your days are glorious, sincerely :)
:) eKa @ 9:38:00 PM • 0 comments
Sunday, May 02, 2021
When I watched Nomadland, I didn't feel much about the slow moving movie. Mom called me in the middle of me watching it and I talked to her about the premise of the movie. It's not my favourite in this year's Oscar (I'm leaning towards Minari maybe because as Asian, we get it more?), but Nomadland came to my mind a lot as I am undergoing a big change these past 2 weeks. As written in the last post, this April brings with it a feeling of melancholic reflection. Like last year, aside of what happened with my dad, COVID-19 brought a set of tasks that can be quite demanding. This year, in addition to all that, in the last 2 weeks I had to find a new place to stay and move out. The reason why I moved out would be silly for some people, a non-issue, but for me and Jenny 2.0, we're just on 2 opposite sides. I was surprised that my mom didn't reprimand me whenever I complained. She also didn't say I was being overly dramatic when I said I felt like moving out. She was instead very supportive and tried to calm me down and told me to move on if I didn't feel comfortable anymore. She did say to say sorry to Jenny 2.0 on my way out - very typical Indonesian requirement. However I couldn't bring myself to it. I did manage to say thank you for everything and take care. I think I lived with the first Jenny for 8 years or so and I lived with Jenny 2.0 for over 8 years. So maybe every 8 years I am destined to move? Anyways, it was a long time to live with Jenny 2.0 and as I was exiting, there are things that she did that make me feel like wow ... in a negative way. My mom told me to let it go whaveter it is, some people may need more things than us, also mom said she did good things to me as well and I shouldn't forget that. Another person may tell me that's because I don't give enough so there will be times when things will be taken from me. This time last year, I have to let go things that I felt was done unkindly to me, so this year it's the same. I hope it will be better days next year.
Anyways, new place. I was really stressed out about moving out and I wanted it to be quick. I was so stressed out that my body did something strange and I'm so confused. It's like the 1-2 week stress that I had was like a month for my body. I hope it's nothing because if not I have another major issue on hand :( I really cannot survive this all without my mom. She was calm and told me to calm down and deal with things one step at a time. This new place has good sides and bad sides but the usual me, I am seeing more of the bad side. The one big difference and as mom told me yesterday is that, for the past 2 living situations I was living with someone. Now I am in charge of my own things. There's a landlord and landlady, but they don't live here. So mom thinks this is a new thing for me, like a new phase of life. For someone who hate housework, it seems I have to do more cleaning and that makes me think of one of my cousin who cleans and cooks and how great it will be if she's living here so that she can clean for me :D There are more things in my room like a small fridge and an induction cooker (I don't cook), but it's a more noisy area. There seems to be a lot more things going on in the neighbourhood.
Put it simply, it's like I'm living in a super small modest studio. That's why my mind goes to Nomadland a lot. In Nomadland, the main character, Fern, decided to live simply in her van and find works in different places in America like many other actual nomads (who are also featured in the movie). To facilitate this move out, I actually shipped a cupboard size of things back home and yet I was stunned I still have so many junks that I lug with me. I thought of Fern and the other nomads in the movie who choose to live the nomadic life. You really have to have the mindset of letting go a lot of earthly possessions. Is it sad? I kinda feel so more on the part that they don't have a single stationary place to live in, but it is perhaps what they are actually looking for. At the same time I also find it amazing that they're able to do this. It is so liberating. So where I am right now, I'm not living in a car. I live in place which is not the nicest thing you see, but there's a place for me to be safe and all this I do on my own. So I should just give myself a pat in the back and like mom said, it's alright. I just need to give it time to get used to this and like in another movie I watched, The Mauritanian, it's not like I live and and being tortured in Guantanamo Bay. I have prayers and God will be there for me. Though I say that, I still freak out and crumble when things go bad. May God have mercy on me.
:) eKa @ 2:12:00 PM • 0 comments
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Really Not As Bad As Last Year
If you had asked me where I'd be right now last May, I would have had an optimistic answer. I thought I would have been vaccinated and I could go home to be with the family to pray for my dad's 1 year death anniversary and yet I am here with a major problem being thrown my way. I'm barely keeping it together and praise be to Mom who's there to tell me to calm down. I'm not going to talk about my issue right now, maybe I'll do it next week. What I can say right now is that I have been looking back and whatever it is I'm facing now, I know it's pale in comparison to last year when it's the worst time in our family's lives. Knowing that did not stop me from freaking out and stressing out though and my head is so all over the place that I didn't even have time to wish that I'm mentally stronger :(
Entering April, it's really a time of reflection for me. I wish I could have done it in a more peaceful way without this shitty thing that I have to deal with. It starts with April 8th. Good God, that's the worst even though obviously it's not the worst day. There's April 23rd and then tomorrow's date. I haven't done any reading on how one should process grief, I'm sure google will tell you it's different for everyone. I can still cry thinking about my dad so I tried my best not to think too deeply about it. Anything longer than a few minutes could get me crying. Don't get me wrong, me and mom have talked / gossiped about him, like his annoying traits or how he would react to certain family news, and we're fine, we could laugh about it. It's just when I think about his dying process or memory of him, I could still cry about it. I had some tears when I went to temple today to pray and right now, just writing this, tears are starting to form. So what I do is that I try hard not to think too deeply about it. Things could appear randomly in my head and when thoughts about my dad appear in public places, like the bus or just somewhere, it's the more I have to snap out it and pull myself together. I don't know if what I'm doing is healthy, but well I have been unhealthy mentally, so this is nothing new?
President Biden said there will come a time when the thoughts of the departed loved ones will bring us smiles first before tears. I believe him when he said that and it is comforting to hear him say that. I don't always cry when I talk about my dad, but where I am now, I could easily cry when I think about him. What happened to us last year was really bad and through it all I'm really thankful that I have my family to go through it all with me. I know how weak I am mentally, how easily I crumble, so I really need someone to lean to :(
:) eKa @ 9:07:00 PM • 0 comments
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
When I buy banana, I always look for the ones in a bunch of 4 and preferably rather green because I'm the only person who will eat them and I eat them over the course of the 4 days, so it shouldn't be overly ripe by day 4. Yes, I am that sad; I eat the bananas from the state that it's hard to peel and tasteless to the point were the skin has turned giraffe like and accumulated maybe too much sugar. It's all very calculated; the group of 4 with a starting light green colour would generally give me a good range of different stages of banana, but then there were times when the supermarket stocks really green green banana that it's not that edible yet. On days like that, I got it anyway because I don't want to go back to the supermarket the next day, but then I would only start eating it the next day and to eat on the day, I got 1 single banana. These are bananas that either have somehow fallen out of the group or were turning yellow and the staff pick them apart so that they can be sold separately. It's very yellow and sometime not that pretty. The sign would say something like, pick me, I'm single! I would then illogically grow a soft sport for them on account on us being the same, alone and ripe and unwanted, left in the basket. So I'd be like, I will choose you single banana, though I am still choosy about the one I would take :D I'm also not all that generous either; when I found out that they're 65 cents a piece, I was like you're still expensive for a banana that may get thrown away (gosh I do hope they won't end up in the rubbish bin, I hope unsold ones will be given for free to the staff or other people), but then I thought, no you're right. So what that you're alone and all ripe, you're still worth your value. Yes, I am projecting way too much of myself into this single banana.
This being March is my birthday month. Turn 39 this year (what the fuck?!?!). Last year when the world was still normal and I went home for Chinese New Year, I met with the best friends and we're talking about maybe taking a short trip this year together, to celebrate the 3 of us being in our last year in the 30 range and Emilia turning 40. We never talk again to plan about it because what can you talk about. It's still not smart to do unnecessary travel though I know many people and Indonesians have done that. Also on a normal circumstances, it's not like borders are easily accesible for Indonesians, so many dreadful paperwork for visa and all. Now during the pandemic, where can we go really? Though if you are in Indonesia, apparently people are still doing domestic tourism. Anyways, birthday always gets me down on account that I'm still stuck but turning 39 feels more depressing because being stuck is not totally true, the age is climbing. Yeah age is just a number but with that age, there's no denying that physically your body is degrading and things that you really want to do maybe forever be closed for you. Looking back as I am ending my 30s, I do see that perhaps my 30s is the decade where I do not do much. Let me break it down:
0-10: I was born, learned how to read and write, arithmetic - pretty much learning how to be a functioning human. There are extreme changes from when you were born to when you're 10, so that's an accomplishment.
11-20: completed elementary school, junior high school, high school and got accepted into a university and moved to a different country. I would say that's quite a life changing moment though now looking back, it's a whole lot of education, yes? The only decade in my life when I was all in institutionalized education.
21-30: graduated from the university, started to do what most adults in the world have to do to survive (I refuse to talk about this), also started to do things that I wanted to do for myself like learning new languages and travelled alone for the first time. The travelling alone is quite life changing as well because I feel it's really building me into someone who is just capable of doing things on my own.
31-40: I have nothing here really. It's all life as usual. Not to say that it doesn't come with its life changing moment as well. Dad died. So that happened. As for things that I did or accomplished, nothing really. Nothing new, not to say the usual stuff is not great, like the travelling have been a blessing, but as accomplishment and all that, I have nothing. It feels like same old same old :(
I still have 1 more year in the 30s, so maybe a good massive thing would happen, but as with anything, I don't have a lot of confidence :( I really don't feel like going on and on like this :( Yes, I am spiralling and yes I know that I'm putting arbitrary deadlines on what should be achieved when and time is a construct, but still, as I march on and try to be okay, I'm just not that okay. I guess it doesn't help that along with the restlessness and anxiety, physically my body has been breaking down everywhere. I'm really am tired and many days I'm still not sleeping. I pray for something good, for good days unlike these ones, but here I am repeating a life I should be grateful for, but not necessarily want to do.
:) eKa @ 11:57:00 AM • 0 comments
bluesky.
photos.
archives.