The Cliché

I was always such a cliché: I always fall for my best friend.

My first love was my childhood friend, expectedly. He has dark hair and his eyes were as brown and round as bush baby's. He used to walk me to and fro the playground, sometimes after eating a Popsicle. Once, he grabbed my hand that we walked to home hand in hand, ten sticky fingers and melted Popsicle. That was one of my fondest memories.

My last love... was you, I think.You were always there, almost all day and night. Back in college, our dorm buildings were just 50 meters apart so we did almost everything together from the first day of orientation. But no, of course back then I did not, yet, realize that I actually saw you as more than just my breakfast-lunch-and-dinner buddy.

Fast forward to graduation and our first job, you got a job at the university while I got an offer from my dream job in another city. We were about 500 kilometers apart but yet we were still talking, updating each other's life every Saturday night. Sometimes you even came visit, especially when it was summer break at university that you can take some time away from your research. Vice versa, I would stop by our alma mater whenever I visited my parents who lived a couple hours away. Most of the times, you even came to visit them as well, either with me or on your own. You were like the son they never had.

Then, your project at the university was completed and you got another research opportunity offer at the same city where I lived. You moved and basically it was college all over again. It was another series of breakfast-lunch-and-dinner all over again. Neither of us mind, though.

Neither of us find that our coexistence means something else, something more.

At least until last night.

Well, they said people are at their most beautiful self when they talk about something they really love. They would have that certain passion, desire in their eyes.

I just saw it last night. I still cannot get over the way your eyes sparkled when you told me about her.

A change in plan

So I decided to write more on this space. Which means, I may not only writing so-called "fictional" stories. Which means, I should stop acting like all the writing is fictional.

News flash: some of them are not so fictional! (which I realized, is not so news flash-y for some people)

Where to begin...

While I was never the ambitious type of person since middle school, I always try to do my best in everything. And I love to plan stuffs! My bad habit is: when life went a bit astray, sometimes I got into this overthinking, overreacting mode. So, naturally, when I finished my thesis this February and had to go home on March, I planned to get a job as soon as possible.

...as if life was that easy! For a remah-remah peyek like me, who's crazy enough to take a cross-discipline postgraduate degree, a job does not acquired in a cinch. It was a bit frustrating, especially the times when I heard that I'm not environmental enough for this job but I'm not economics enough for that. A bit of loose thread, I was (and maybe still am).

To cut the long (and whiny) story short, after five months I finally secured a job offer. It requires me to relocate to another city, but hey, new adventure! Even the start date works out rather perfectly: it is the week after my graduation. Which means, I could have my graduation trip before I start "the real life" of working full-time.

The point of all these ramblings is: sometimes, you want your life to start as soon as possible. As in now. You plan it to happen now, so you do everything within your capability to make it so.

But life does not work that way. Maybe you've done all you can to do so, you've given all your best, but life will happen on the best time. Isn't God the best planner, after all?

So, yea, I need to shut my whiny snout, enjoy any change of plans, and just get on with life.

She Said, He Said

She said, she cannot love. Not again. Not after the last time she did became the worst disaster she ever had in her life, so far.

He said, it does not matter. He had all the love in the world to share, more than enough for both of them.

She said, it was tiring. It was highly improbable to succeed. It was an unnecessary wait.

He said, what if the wait will be the best thing ever happen to both of them?

What if, the result is their happily ever after?

Tiny Beautiful Things – Cheryl Strayed

This is taken from Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things last chapter (or letter?) with the same title. I really really like the answer she gave to the question, and considering I'm a twentysomething, this is super relevant. I also think that it's still relevant for other age group; age is just a number after all.

What would you tell your twentysomething self if you could talk to her now?

Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.

In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her.

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.

When that really sweet but fucked-up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do Ecstasy with them, say no.

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.

One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize that there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin, you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her sceptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possible even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.

Say thank you.

Home

What is worse

Not knowing where home is

Or knowing where it is but cannot go back?

Secret

She is the kind of girl who like to work behind the screen.

She is the kind of girl who does everything discreetly.

Well.

Should I say, most everything?

----

"I can't do this anymore, you know," she says after my explanation.

"But you shy away from much compliment, from acknowledgement. You like to keep secret. You like to be secret," I replies rightaway.

She smiles to me before replying. The way her hazel eyes twinkles, it makes me feel special just by being looked at.

"You know what? When you have something so special, so precious that you are endlessly grateful for, you should really want everyone in the whole wide world to see. That's what I feel about you."

Wicked

"Because, I was trying to save you... from me."

"I know it's such an arrogant word to say, to save someone. I can barely save myself. But really, I just want you to be happy. And I know you won't get it from me."

"I'm wicked. I know the right things to say, or do. And I tend to exploit it. I know how to make people feel special. I know how to make things happen like fate. I know how to manipulate things to make it so. Sometimes I even manipulate people."


"Really. I'm not a saviour, not a guardian angel. I'm wicked. You're much better off without me."