One of Those Mornings

 

My mom once told me that the older I got, the clearer it would be to differ the bad from the good. I believed it. I saw growing older, turning into an adult, meant you had everything figured out. You held your values firm, you had your mind resoluted, you had this map of what would you do in life you basically traced it to reach the finish line. And you wanted to be a good person. That's a good foundation, right? You just wanted to be good so everything fell after was in the work of achieving that.

Then I arrived in a phase where that idea was not 100% accurate, causing a spiralling mental, a disruption of believe and later, an erupting anger for the elders who seemed to simplify what it was to grow up. I was prepared for a straight lane: good degree, a career and white fence house. No one groomed me for a thunder storm. I was caught by surprised. Then spending most of my 20s cursing the north star.

I was angry. I felt as if I got deceived real bad.

I wrote about this narrative for almost a decade now. You can always track them to my old posts. I wrote a lot of Is here, but that's simply the sole purpose of this medium. For me to get angry. Because I don't get to do that in real world. Call it cowardice or probably, despite all the catastrophy, being awfuly considerate roots deep in me to the point of swallowing the lump back inside instead of nastily vomit it out. I don't get to get angry here. I tried. But there's always justification for treating me such, and never enough damage to actually see me as a cripple. I didn't want to make the enemy of a noble cause, so I dug a pit to hide a part of myself.

I am angry. Sometimes.

This morning I woke up to a serene silence, which envelope me like a fetus with a fear of getting flushed out to the real world. I had it good, peaceful, slowly groove to do my cores. The day was still, as if waiting for me to be ready to join its stream. I was feeling nothing in particular, actually got carried a way with the currents of my thought, then......the anger hit me. Slowly, waking up from its corner, then.....red flamming and thighten chest. I got sucked, or probably I've surrendered already from the beginning of it arised.

Still, not good enough to say I am crippled.

All Aboard

Just last week I had an intense wave of emotion saying I should not wish for anything good in life. It's rooting deep, since the past was not the most glimmering story you'd hear on a get together with friends or (especially) family. No one is interested in sappy, quiet story of mending a broken spirit. No one is interested on nursing an isolated child, day by day, step by step, it's a lot of task. No one is interested in learning your shade of greys, for it's easier to put them in either white or black.

Why is it so hard to shake all of those hurt and stubbornly only live by yourself? Why do I think of you during the blur of my days? I was desperately asking God to remove affection from my heart. I fear it will kill me in the near future. I fear it leads me to stray: to greedily consume every bit of it. I kept thinking the origin of this all, all came back to loving too much and not being loved enough. The yin and yang. The fuckin' black and white.

This is a rant, a cluttering thoughts. I feel restless to the point of not feeling anything at all. Where will I end up this time around?

All My Love to You

Earlier this month, I lost my grandma. The one that I like. The one that I spent part of my childhood with. The one with beautiful smile and silky hair.

The whole family knew since April, she didn't have much time left. She was very ill, despite not showing any sign of being severely ill. She was even traveling to Denpasar when we found out about the disease. I was in shock, as everybody was. I immediately flown home and stayed for almost a month cause she's having a big operation to fix her heart. It felt weird hearing such news at first. I though her heart was the one thing that didn't need fixing, it's a gold. It's all started to sink in when I saw her sitting weakly at the hospital bed, several tubes held her body like a rag doll. She was that sick. And I couldn't stand that scene.

I squeezed the most out of my time home. I knew I couldn't stay by her side forever. At some point I had to fly back to Bandung. I didn't have much time. And when you're pinched that hard, you gave almost everything-in your disposable-you could to make memories, to make her happier even for a slightest bit, because sometimes in a near future, you could only stare at her picture and miss her in silence. And I have my own limit, but she knows when enough is good enough. She made it so hard to let her go anytime soon, simply because I would like to be in her grace longer. But if she decided it's time, I would, with all my heart, accompany her to the very last breath, or even after, 'till she's done saying good bye to everyone and decended to heaven. I hope she knows that if she's happy, that's rippling back at me.

Grieving is nothing new for me. But loosing her is as new as the breaking of dawn. I probably need sometime until I'm used of not seeing her whenever I come home. But there's her cardigan in her room, with her scent still lingering, there's memories living within me, with her smiling in joy. It's okay. I can manage.