Not To Be Ungrateful Or Anything (an essay)
November 30, 2018
Life today, 334th day of 2018.
I know generally life is nowhere
near perfection, but I never really know how it feels to have a “normal” phase
of life. Like,
EVERYTHING-is-okay-and-bearable-for-at-least-a-good-period-of-time-before-it-started-to-fall-apart.
There was always a dent. I never really know how “I’m okay” actually feels.
Usually when I said “I’m okay,” implicitly half of the sentence meant that I
was either in denial or already too accepting that a-not-okay condition becomes
my version of normalcy. It was never a holistic answer so to say, more like,
how I’m coping with it kinda answer.
Not to be ungrateful or anything,
I know I have so many things I should be grateful about, it’s just that
sometimes I really really wanna know how normal and okay actually feel like.
How it feels when family life is okay, work is okay, money is okay, friends are
okay, relationship is okay, love life is okay, everything is okay. I know some
have it even tougher than me, that’s why I don’t question this that often. I’m
grateful, but I never really talked about my anxieties that I kept for years.
I seriously think my
overthinker gene got way worse as I grew up. I know I
shouldn’t overthink (and therefore feel/care too much), but the older I get,
the bigger my responsibility is, the more complicated my life challenges are,
the more I can’t help not to overthink. Seriously, it’s no fun. It almost feels
like a disease. I just hope that I’m not subconsciously depressed because I
really can’t tell. Hence, I do what I know best: write about it.
My life experiences forced me to grow up a bit faster than some of my peers (sometimes I feel like I’m a 30 y.o soul trapped in early 20s body) and ironically, at the same time, made me a late bloomer. Not complaining though. Just saying. I’m glad I can still enjoy/experience stuff at a considerably acceptable age (okay, I didn’t bloom that late then, just fashionably late. LOL.)
I realized I was ‘sick’ when I was 17 years old and it had been that
way ever since. It’s hard when problems come from the core of your root: home.
But that’s just how life is, eh? It doesn’t always allow you to choose. Of
course some things got better as I got older. Some other things become more
bearable because you’re trained by years of experience. Then I turned 22, got
my first job and jumped into the real world, and my eyes were opened once
again. If you’re working and hanging out with many people older than you and
you love to observe, you’ll see that there’s actually no such thing as black
and white in this world. Turns out, there’s this grey area, the 'in-betweens' where you can no longer tell which one is right or wrong and you can’t really
judge until you’re in their shoes (or choose to completely ignore it). I
started to question stuff when I was in college, and started to get my real
life examples at work. It changed my view almost completely as to how people
live their lives when they get older, when reality not only hits you, but jabs
you over and over. I started to learn how other people see and treat their
career, marriage, family, friendship, relationship, money, virtue, well…
everything.
I just hope that because of this
I don’t send away the people who actually care about me, because sometimes I
still think I don’t deserve their love and kindness. Looking back, this year, I
got the chance to explore other things in my life. I graduated from college, career
was progressing, I started to travel here and there, got more and more and
mooore friends, and accomplished some personal dreams. How was my luck in love
life? Still close to zero. Hahaha. Nothing went right, even when I felt like
this was probably my time to finally meet a great guy I could connect with, it
always fell apart. Even when I think I’ve played it cool or tried to give the
guy a chance (until I actually fell for him), still, nothing went right. I was
so tired that I secretly prayed if I have to be alone for a long time, then so
be it. I would rather feel nothing and be on my own until I find my soulmate,
than feeling temporarily happy only to be crashed and burned again.
But unfortunately, there are some
things you can’t control no matter how hard you try. And that includes this.
I’m so used to building up my self-defense as quickly as possible to
prevent my heart from hurting again. When your life is basically a series of
heartbreak that requires you to be tough at all times since you were young, you
lose the ability to cry. It’s not so much that you are numb, you’re just kind
of trained. Then it becomes systematic. But on the other hand, being an uber
sensitive overthinker really doesn’t help me at all in achieving this.
Hear how fucked up I sound?
I don’t know why I’m writing all
this. But sometimes I really, really, really don’t know where to go. I lost the
ability to cry at my own problems (It is really hard for me to physically cry
for things related to myself) and that’s when anxiety kicks in.
Life still goes on, some made me
happy, some made me unhappy. I have to admit that sometimes life fails me no
matter how bad I try to win it over. And it’s actually okay to be defeated, I
don’t owe any trophy to anyone.
Maybe I have to acknowledge my
issues to not feel depressed and anxious again. I have to acknowledge my issues
to understand that I deserve healing and all the good things in life. And if until today I still ask
myself “Where do I go?” whenever I feel that the burden is just too much, I
hope every tear I finally be able to cry out is one step further to my “home.”
There are so many layers and
spectrum of my problems that would be too embarrassing and private to share,
even I felt weird writing what I wrote above because usually I just suck it all
in. But if being weak can make me feel stronger for a change, maybe this time
I’ll open up, even to strangers out there who are reading this.
I know some of you must have it
way rougher in life, I just hope you can always find a place to run to when it
gets too overwhelming.
I hope all this pain will all be
worth it someday.
I hope someday comes sooner
because I’m just too tired already.
I’m sending my love to everyone
who’s trying their best to heal from things they don’t discuss; karena hidup
tuh kadang Alhamdulillah, kadang Astagfirullah, tapi paling sering YAELAH. Dan personally ingin bertanya aja gitu sama Tuhan kenapa ya aku tidak
dikasih sifat ambisius sepercikpun like my whole life I’ve been pasrah mengalah
dan YAUDAHLAH…
May the last 31 days of 2018 will bring the
plot twist we’ve been waiting for.
xoxo,
NDY
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