Perihal Mengikhlaskan

I guess I'd rather stay moving on from better days
I miss my better ways, wish I never saw your face
but that's okay

(Sarah and the Sundays - Moving On)

Beberapa hari silam, aku menemukan sebuah lagu bertajuk Moving On dalam daftar putar Discover Weekly Spotify-ku. Karena sesuai dengan keinginanku saat ini - yakni mengikhlaskan suatu fase kehidupan dan terus bergerak maju - aku memutuskan untuk mendengar dan mencari liriknya. And I don't regret it.

"I guess I'd rather stay moving on from better days"; ingat, from, bukan towards. Hal ini menarik bagiku, karena biasanya hal klise yang dikatakan oleh orang lain saat seseorang telah memasuki fase gelap dalam kehidupan adalah 'nggak apa-apa, hari yang lebih cerah akan menantimu', 'Tuhan sedang menyiapkan hal yang lebih baik untukmu', dan sejenisnya, dan sebagainya.

Bukannya aku tak percaya bahwa hari-hari yang lebih bahagia akan tiba. Hanya saja, perlahan aku menyadari satu hal perihal mengikhlaskan; bahwa sejatinya kita harus menerima bahwa segala keindahan yang kita miliki, jalani, lalui dulu memang adalah nyata adanya. Hal itu adalah berkah dari Tuhan dan seluruh semestaNya, dan bukan suatu hal yang mesti dihindari, dilupakan, apalagi dianggap tidak pernah ada.

Aku bersyukur atas hari-hari indah yang pernah dihadiahi semesta padaku; atas segala kemudahan, semua gelak tawa, dan beragam rasa yang ditawarkan.

Maka saat segala kenikmatan itu ditarik dariku, aku hanya akan melambaikan tangan padanya sembari menyaksikannya keluar dari pintu kehidupanku. Berterima kasih bahwa suatu hal pernah terjadi, saat sebuah posisi pernah ditempati, saat seseorang pernah ada di sisi. Percaya bahwa semua memiliki makna dan pelajaran tersendiri yang tersisip di balik kepergiannya.

Kini saatnya menghadapi hari-hari yang lebih berat dengan sejumput rasa ikhlas. Karena memang begitulah adanya hidup; manis dan pahit silih berganti, tanpa tawar-menawar terhadap apa yang telah digariskan olehNya. Entah sampai kapan.

A Blurry Sense of Identity

Ada bagian dari diriku yang senantiasa memikirkan pandangan orang lain padaku. Ya, 'bagian', karena aku tidak ingin menjadikannya identitasku. Tyler Joseph menamai bagian serupa dalam dirinya sebagai Blurryface. Ia bahkan mengabadikannya dalam karya-karyanya sebagaimana yang ia senandungkan dalam Stressed Out;

My name's Blurryface, and I care what you think.

Blurryface is a symbolism of the parts of ourselves that we disapprove, the cruel voices inside our heads; our doubts, our insecurities, our sorrow. They're not a representation of us. They're not our identity. They're something that sticks with us, and we've got to work hard to be able to make peace with it.

That part of me - my Blurryface - has been sticking with me for years now. He possesses me. He became one with me. He got me into thinking that those negative thoughts and traits are who I am, that he is my identity. He made me afraid of losing myself if I get rid of him. And unfortunately, up 'til now, I'm still unsure of how to differentiate which parts of myself are genuinely mine and which are his.

A Personal Take on Music: Of Life... and Death

Some people might be confused why am I so obsessed with music (when I can't even play any goddamn instrument). Bagiku, musik adalah caraku merayakan hidup - salah satunya, dengan menyematkan memori mengenai orang lain dalam lagu-lagu tertentu. Dengan begitu, saat orang tersebut sudah tiada, I can always listen to that one particular song and feel their presence back in my heart and my mind.

But sometimes, it also works like a boomerang. Kerap kali aku tidak berani mendengar suatu musik atau bahkan suatu band lagi, karena entah kenapa bagiku jadi sangat sulit untuk mengikhlaskan kepergian sang 'pemilik' lagu itu dalam benakku. It was as if they were still alive in between the lyrics and the instruments, their spirits carrying on with me in every step I take.

Sampai hari ini, aku belum berani kembali mendengar Avenged Sevenfold. Kenapa? Karena dalam band tersebut tersemat kenanganku dengan almarhumah kakak panitia dari sebuah lomba Scrabble yang aku ikuti di Pekanbaru, dan saat itu menjadi teman mengobrolku mengenai A7x yang sedang aku gilai. Masih teringat jelas di pikiranku saat aku SKSD bicara dengannya karena ia memutar lagu A7x di speaker, dimana akhirnya ia merekomendasikan lagu A7x yang berjudul 4.00AM untuk kudengarkan.

It's four in the morning, you got one more chance to die. 

Like beautiful stories, the greatest chapters flew right by. 

There comes a day when we will find out for ourselves, 

that once we had the words to say, there's no one left to tell 

I know why you're running away...

Same goes to Lana del Rey, the favorite singer of a late best friend of mine. He jokingly told me that he was confused of my preference in musical genre and wondered "lagu kau tu berat, nggak sakit telinga kau denger rock gitu?". He then suggested me to listen to Lana del Rey instead, whose song 'Love' was his favorite.

I really did listen to it at the time, but didn't look so close into the lyrics 'til he finally left us all behind;

You get ready, you get all dressed up 

to go nowhere in particular 

back to work or the coffeeshop 

doesn't matter, 'cause it's enough 

to be young, and in love...

It was both beautiful and heartbreaking to figure out how much he loved the concept of being young, and in the end, managed to stay forever young. Perhaps they weren't exaggerating when they made the saying "you are what you listen to". Not to point out how the other one's favorite song was about the choice you had to make in 4.00AM; to either run away from your problems and take your own life, or decide to stay 'til your time comes. I'm glad that, in her case, it turns out to be the latter.

As for me... well? I guess I'd love to be remembered everytime y'all listen to a TØP song. Still not sure which one specifically, though.

Ah, sudahlah, lebih baik aku bobo dulu saja. See you around, gengs.

It's almost 4:00AM, and I decide to keep on living.

Pergi dan (Tak)'kan Kembali - Tulisan Singkat tentang Scrabble (Lagi)

"You don't know what you have until it's gone."

Pertama kali bertemu dengan pepatah tersebut, hal yang spontan kupikirkan adalah 'halah omong kosong, aku sadar kok sama apa yang aku punya. Dasar orang-orang kurang bersyukur.' Namun begitu memasuki kelas 12, barulah aku tersadar bahwa aku telah kehilangan apa yang aku punya pada jenjang-jenjang sebelumnya; kebebasan.

Tepatnya, kebebasan untuk mengikuti perlombaan tanpa begitu memusingkan nilai-nilai akademis seperti yang kualami sekarang. "Mengejar sertifikat untuk jalur-jalur masuk universitas," begitu dalihku saat masih semangat-semangatnya berlomba. Namun motivator utamaku tak pernah berubah, yakni rasa cinta pada cabang lomba yang seakan menjadi bahan bakar dalam diriku dulu; Scrabble.

Aku tahu, mungkin terdengar berlebihan. Hanya saja aku tak bisa lepas dari manis-pahitnya kompetisi. Manis saat memenangkan beberapa permainan sulit, mendapat VP dan menambah margin, dan mengenal banyak orang baru. Pahit saat mengalami kekalahan yang tak diduga, berkali-kali gagal masuk ke jajaran peringkat atas, dan diremehkan karena tak sekalipun menjadi juara.

Aku menulis ini bukan untuk menyalahkan nasib, pun lari dari tanggung jawab dan kembali ke masa-masa yang indah itu. Aku hanya ingin menjadikan tulisan ini sebagai tanda bahwa dulunya, aku punya sesuatu yang begitu berarti. Sesuatu yang mengubah sosokku yang biasanya cepat putus asa, menjadi pantang menyerah. Dan, sesuatu yang menjadi alasan bagiku untuk benar-benar hidup.

Suatu saat nanti, saat tanggung jawab sudah kutunaikan dan masa kelam ini telah sampai pada titik henti, aku akan kembali.

Surviving 2014: Memoirs of the Previous Year(s)

I hope writing this kind of post on the third day of a new year is quite forgivable.

2012 was such a sweetheart, albeit having a strong flavor of bitter-sweetness. On the year's first half, I got a taste of first (unrequited) love, first heartbreak and all the disgusting cheesy stuff everyone must have experienced (or will experience) at some early phase of  their teenage years. Oh well, writing it here makes me feel so yucky, I apologize, but I have no other choice other than getting it written. The year's second half was way better. Many amazing things happened - and it, more or less, changed my perspective on life, on myself, and the whole world. I realized many things about myself that time; especially the fact that I wasn't just another kid that wanted to study and come up with high grades to satisfy herself and her parents. And so it began, the times when I worked my ass off to practice English, create a school blog, write, and draw for the sake of my own self, and for the appreciation and compliments from people around me because being not known sucks. I didn't want to be clever. I wanted to be recognized.

On the other hand, 2013 was such, pardon me, a complete asshole. I was recognized, I guess. Loads of people talked to me due to my creation of a school blog which many people complimented as funny and brilliant. But did I feel, even a bit, happiness or pride as if I'd reached a great accomplishment? Surprisingly, it's a big no. Why? Consider this; there's a great difference between being loved because of who you are (your personality, your looks, how you talk, those kind of things) and being popular because of what you have created. Both are equally sweet, I once thought to cheer myself up, but what would happen if I'd never come up with the idea of creating that blog in the first place? Would they ever, at least, love me as a person? No. Would they talk to me with admiration? No, because I'm just another not-so-good-looking girl with an awkward personality and nothing nice enough to like about. Needless to say, this realization wasn't a good thing for the beginning of my teenage years, as it affected my self-esteem a bit too much. Not to mention the things that followed after; having my parent being called by my homeroom teacher, seeing my friends ripping off the article I'd written and printed wholeheartedly, losing the people who meant a lot to me, and other things I don't want to recall right now as they used to kill me a bit inside.

So when 2014 readily served a new chapter each for all seven billions lives on this planet Earth, I couldn't help but wonder about what pattern has God prepared for me that year and all the years to come - if I happened to live long enough, that is. For instance, 2012 was a nice year, and 2013 wasn't. So was 2014 going to be as nice as 2012 (a.k.a repeating the pattern), or was it going to be shittier than 2013 (a.k.a having the graph goes downward)? I didn't know. No one knew.

I have little to no memory about the beginning of 2014, except for the time when the trumpets were blown and the fireworks were set as my brothers barged into my bedroom to give me their brotherly new-year-hug. Oh, and also the time when I opened twitter to discover a horror picture and turned out to be all "oh shit, this is gonna be a shitty year all along". January, nothing happened. So did February, except for the birthday of someone special but that didn't contribute much. March, I had the loneliest birthday ever... Somehow. April, a hectic month full of examinations, both practical and written. May, national exams followed by a quite fun preparation for farewell party, then the party itself, then a study tour and finally my last class farewell event in junior high... Ever. June, when hard work got paid off; a pretty good national exam results, but probably not good enough to get into the town's - or perhaps the province's - most wanted high school. July, when I was finally able to sigh in relief as I stepped on SMAN 8 Pekanbaru's territory, but my days weren't conflict-free either. August, choices were made. September, October, November, December... Things have gone on too quickly ever since - and life's getting better all the time, I suppose.

If 2014 was a chapter in my life (in my case, the 15th chapter), it sure wasn't a typical one where things immediately got better after all the conflicts in the previous chapter. It was, in fact, a slowly progressing one. The first four sub-chapters made it seem as if all the conflicts would continue instead of being resolved. The fifth gave a break to the main character, so did sixth which explained how things weren't as messed up as they actually seemed. Seventh offered a whole new circumstance for the main character. Eighth, instead of serving the solutions to all problems, was where the main character was stuck in between choices; and in this case, the whole Sciences-or-Social thing.

I've been having an interest in sciences since I was little. My brother and I used to collect many, many books related to the sciences, and since we were just mere little kids who loved decent pictures a bit too much, all of them were in the form of comic books. When I was in my third year of elementary my father bought me a set of encyclopedias, which made my interest in sciences grow even more. I scored higher in sciences than I did in social studies, and perhaps any other subjects.

But as I entered junior high realization kicked in - that I fell in love with the world of literature, aesthetics, and social studies, too. I wrote many things to myself because I was too shy to show other people, drew well in art class, and studied hard in social studies. I abandoned my love for sciences, my admiration to Gregor Mendel, my will to learn more about atoms and how it made all the things in the universe, and other things I was supposed to love the most. Journalism was my life goal, which I would probably never achieve for now, because high school reminded me of my love for sciences again. The psychology test that "forced" me to be in sciences, despite my ambitions in social studies and linguistics. The inability to refuse and move to social studies. I was in dilemma, for I knew I was no longer the brilliant student in sciences. But no matter what the circumstance was, the choice had to be made. Some choices are made unwillingly, others freely decided. But all choices affect lives... And so I decided to go on with sciences. It might hurt at first, leaving a huge dream. But meeting sciences wasn't a bad experience - it felt quite right. It felt like meeting an old friend.

Ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth. Aforementioned in the fourth paragraph above this sentence, things have unbelievably gone so fast. Reuniting with elementary friends, new group of friends, new activities to learn (debating, scrabble, poetry writing even though not seriously, etc), all the ups and downs... It wasn't an easy journey, but I'm quite grateful for the year, for the new experiences, for the choices I made albeit I messed them up a bit too much. Being in sciences didn't make it easier for me, but I'm sure it will, for things get better all the time if you keep on being optimistic and consistent with your choice. Oh, and hard work, don't forget to include that in the equation. I lacked in hard work, I guess.

It wasn't the best year ever. But it was - indeed - a precious, memorable one.