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Keep your gratitude. I’ve recieved plenty of it already. I have no regrets.

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🗣 The coronavirus (COVID-19) isn’t an excuse to be racist or xenophobic.

Art by Liberal Jane 

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SALATIGA PEACEFUL WAACK

So once upon a time, a well-known national waacker came to the small Salatiga city and taught waacking class, she encouraged the students to build their own waacking community. I didn’t experience this background story at the first place, but since Salatiga was a small city, everyone knew everyone. I heard about this new dance community they were trying to build. This happened almost a year after my falling-out with my friends, I had just finished my final exam and all, waiting to graduation day. I missed dancing and I had nothing to lose.

I knew two people from the first meeting, they were my old dancing pals, one of them was also a member of DOS (see previous post). It was pretty challenging for me because even though I wasn’t really bad at waacking, but I couldn’t do freestyle like, bruh, I was so bad at it fr. Our waacking sessions went for 2 to 3 hours every Tuesday afternoon, consisting of basic drilling, choreography (if anyone has one to share) and freestyle session. 

Because it’s a small group, we grew closer, like really close. I became the mum of the group, and we would hang out after practice, talking shits and dreaming about dance projects we would like to do together. Since some of us were considered pretty “senior” in Salatiga dance scene, we also taught smaller groups about the basics of waacking and performed in small showcases in town. 

One of the memorable moments was when Salatiga Movement, one of the dance team in town, invited Safina, a waacker from Jogja, a neighbouring city, to teach a short class. I went and danced with everyone, and truly it was a different feeling to be able to dance in a big team (although we weren’t exactly a team, but some of them were also part of SPW so, close enough), it brought back so much nostalgia on my part, and I enjoyed it very much. After class, we held a small 7-to-smoke, a dance battle, between us. It was my first (and probably last) battle, and I had to say, it didn’t go as bad as I thought it would, I did pretty well. The next day we shoot a short choreography with Safina, in the legendary dance spot in Salatiga.

Sadly, my time was short with this team, since I had to graduate soon. So before graduation, I pushed everyone to make the first independent project of the team, which would be my last. We didn’t have much time, but I was stubborn enough to keep on going. I remember, I picked the song because it was the only waacking-able song on my offline playlist, when I decided to create the choreography with the team. We got help from our friends to shoot and edit the video, did it on the newly built hall, and held a small farewell photo session afterwards. Every time I watch the video, it brings smile to my face because it was perfectly like how I imagine it would be, everyone was slaying and moreover, I could say that all the drillings we did for a year did pay off, our techniques was good and we synchronised well. I was so proud of this team —and I still am.

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my favourite part coz IT ME

TANGLED (2010)

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Dance of Satya Wacana

I’m sorry I know I skipped to many days, but here I’m back with another nostalgia of my dancing days! *sob

In 2014, my dancer friends (or gang) and I were quite undefeated in the University. EDance won competition after competition, well, fair enough, it was the oldest dance team in the University, not many faculties had a dance team. Therefore, my bestie and I came up with an idea of what if, we created a University team, so dancers from different faculties can dance together, and the people from other faculties without any dance team can have the option to join a dance team. Sounds great, right? 

Long story short, we did it! After painful steps of University’s internal bureaucracy to sign it up under the Student Body etc, we created the team! As we were the very first batch, we didn’t hold any auditions —although that was the plan for the next years, and there were tons of students signing up! Sixty people showed up on our first regular practice, even though, not surprisingly, the number kept decreasing over the year —either because of the schedule or people having a hard time following the materials, thanks to our dearest coach who decided to “test the waters” from a high level.

The first year wasn’t the best, we had a pretty solid core team —who were basically the same people from the same two teams, and some others, lol- who had a lot of energy. We went from one performance to another (not including the ones with other teams) whilst struggling to pay our coach and competition fees. The video on this post could be considered the peak of our year —or me, at least. We didn’t win tho, the jury said our choreography was “too tight” without “room to breathe” or whatever he meant by that, I said we stayed the stage.

Unfortunately, my days in DOS ended quite similarly to the ones in EDance. My bestie and I had been drifted apart for some time, she spent a lot of time in the neighbouring city with her bf, and I spent 24/7 with mine (who was also an abuser), in the end we just stopped trying to complement each other again and as we were literally the two leaders of the team, it didn’t go well. On the evaluation day after the term ended, I felt cornered and I did what I did best —runaway. After creating it from scratch, I abandoned my baby because I felt like I had no more comrades in it.

Now that I think of it, nobody was wrong wrong, we all had faults that led to the pretty shaky end of term. The drifting away between my bestie and I turned us into trying to prove the other wrong, whilst in fact, what tied us together was actually our differences that complemented each other. I was in a really bad mental place and I couldn’t handle any more rejection (or in this case, harsh critiques) and I felt like I had to flee to save myself, which I wouldn’t say a bad choice, but I do regret the justifications I kept telling myself instead of admitting that I fucked up, in some ways.

BUT ANYWAYS! As it was stated in the two previous posts, my bestie and I are now fine and back being bffs again. And DOS still kept on going! In fact, after that rough start, they kept winning competitions and this year, they plan to compete in World of Dance, Indonesia. I’m beyond proud!

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SheWolveS

Back to the dancer days! Honestly, I can’t remember how we ended up forming this group (prolly as a revenge to another group I was once a part of that annoyed many other dancers in the small city, or maybe simply to get some extra cash, lol), but it started off with me and two of my best friends taking dance jobs as “sexy dancers”—quoted, because of possible different interpretation.

So the three of us are from the same batch, we danced together in Eleveners team and joined Dance, we hung out together a lot too. Funnily enough, a lot of people actually mistook us for each other, calling us three as “triplets”, it’s a mystery until the present day for us, but I personally think it was because our same height, hair length and style, and just the vibe we gave. 

Let me give you a little bit of a context tho, back then in 2012, Salatiga was very quiet and reserved. There weren’t any girls brave enough to dance as a “sexy dancer” because you know, in a small city, everyone knew everyone and sometimes they be talking to big about rumours, and the term “sexy dancer” didn’t ring a good sound. Therefore, events like the New Year’s Eve, or other big roadshows in our city had always hired the team from the neighbouring, bigger city. On the other hand, the three of us met in the same dance team and instantly knew that we were made for all the “ladies’ style” type of dancing, on a borderline to be called “sexy dancing”, plus, we didn’t give a fuck. So we agreed to form a “sexy dance” group and snatched all those bags!

As I’ve been describing with quoted term “sexy dancer”, this is what I meant: for many of us, hearing the term will automatically make us think of girls in the pub with bikini-like costumes and stuffs, but actually it was a lot simpler than that. We lived in a small city and people weren’t ready to see girls dancing in bikinis—and sure as hell wouldn’t pay enough money- so we needed to be creative not to betray the sexy title, but also not to sell ourselves too cheap. It was honestly easy tho, because many times, these “sexy dancers” weren’t actually dancing, they were just sexy girls in sexy costumes, on a stage, so people would measure her sexiness from her exposed skin. For us, it was the other way, we showed sexiness from our moves and our (dancing) attitudes, facial expressions and all the stage presence, therefore we didn’t need to reveal that much skin. Well, it worked.

(I’m sorry it’s the only on-stage picture that I still have, for we didn’t usually tape or took footage of our performance—so that we could use the same concept again for other jobs, lol)

SheWolveS also grew into an independent dance group, somehow. It was those days when we were so in love with dancing that we literally dance on every chance, we could be in-between classes and just went to the University common space to practice or made up a new choreography. So on other chances, we tried competing in dance competitions, too.

Ah, those days when we had so much energy. We made our own costume, wore it like freaks—news flash, no one wore crop tops for fun back then- and lured our innocent friends to dance like we were strippers, LOL. There were a couple of weird jobs we took, like when we were asked to dance in a wedding—as sexy dancers!- and all the aunties and grandmas were looking at us funny or dancing with shemales (personally my favourite because they were so extra and I became like a sort of background dancer, so it’s less tiring for me, lol). But we had a lot of fun, we were young and bold, we feared nothing and just expressed ourselves in the way we believed in, not giving a F to the rest of the world.

SheWolveS’ era came to an end when me and my best friend (the one that’s always in the picture, if you can tell) had a clash and stopped talking—the same issue caused by my ex-bf that forced me to quited 3 teams at once. We drifted further and she went to join a new team that later made her busier, and so would I. (Fun fact: we then made up after doing the same real sexy-dancing—in the club and all- one year later) Still, the memories of having to create and lived through this team will always be one one of the dearest for me.

PS: We still have one dance video on Youtube that I’d never delete for the sake of the memories, but PLEASE MIND OUR MESSY MOVES! It was from a different era and we just started dancing, so... that was all we had got, lol!

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J-Days

Let’s go back a little bit in time today. It might be slightly difficult to believe if you just got to know me recently, but I’ve always been a huge japan fangirl. I’ve always been infested in anime and mangas, but I think the turning point was when chatroom became a thing. 

I was still in JHS back then and got into my emo phase, but instead of listening to MCR or Green Day, I fell in love with L’Arc~En~Ciel, a japan rock band. So instead of going full-blown emo, I became a J-rock fangirl. (fun fact: I had only went to one concert in my whole life, and it was L’Arc~En~Ciel’s.) Fast forward to my early Uni days, I dated another J-fan, who was also a vocalist of a band that covered japanese songs. I kinda went deeper into the hole.

Even in Salatiga, I co-founded a Japanese lovers community (which I abandoned soon as I went into dancing, lol) and joined a band as the vocalist, We mostly covered supercells’ album, but occasionally, we also sang popular, mainstream songs.

My interest in Japanese culture grew, and that time AKB48 just gained popularity in Indonesia as they formed the first sister group, JKT48 (which I actually applied into, but too old to get selected). The trend was so big I actually got offered to coach a small, independent group to dance to AKB’s choreo —the group ended up never debuted tho, lol. I enrolled a dance cover competition with my friends as well, we sang and danced to Heavy Rotation and that was probably when I decided to just pick one instead of both singing and dancing at the same time  —  it was hard, lol.

Don’t mind my make up, lol! Speaking about make up tho, the negative effect from being a J-girl was probably that it made me struggle with body issues even more. As if it wasn’t obvious, my appearance was nowhere near the Japanese beauty standard, or any East Asians, really —slim, long, straight hair, fair-skinned, and thin lips. I remember clearly how would try to put so much concealer on my lips, straightened my hair, and put on an “ijstant whitening” lotion everytime I wanna dress up as a J-girl.

I think that was the reason I never got serious with cosplaying —besides the lack of crafting skills and money- I always felt that I wasn’t good enough because I could never have the minimum requirement of any character that I wanted to dress up as. I kept trying to fight my own negativity tho, so I did a few costreet (wearing a costume in an event without actually signing up for the cosplay competition).And eventhough I kinda knew that I was good, I was still very concerned about how people think of me and the fact that not many people actually come up to me on the street to appreciate my costume whatsoever, it made me even more conscious about how I was not enough.

Although, look at that lewk!!! Noting that it was 2011, that gothic make up was so on point that now I kinda want to recreate it!!!

Oh well, what’s done is done, and I fought with what I had at that time, and the most important thing is that I had fun! Btw, being a J-fan helped me hooked up with some cute Japanese boys as well, LMAO.) I might not look as excited to dress up like a J-girl —coz it’s kinda not my image rn- but I’m always be a J-fan at heart!! The culture, the anime, the mangas, the music, and the country itself —which has always been on my number 1 bucket list, ever- and I don’t think it’s “only a phase” coz it’s been 20-something years and I still haven’t gotten over it.

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EDance

Once an EDancer, always an EDancer!

This is gonna be a long, heartfelt post with loads of pictures!

Okay, so this kinda happened at the same time with the previous post. Due to the merger, my old dance team had to merge with FBS’ dance team, too. It was actually more convenient since we shared the same coach, and FBS’ dance team was super famous at the time that you gotta go through auditions first! We were given the opportunity to join the team without audition since you know, everyone wished students from FBS would be friends with the ex-STiBA.

Long story short, my original team mates fell back one by one, I never knew the real reasons —I was the outcast, remember?- but they just gradually stopped showing up at the practice, leaving me and one other girl. Well, I have always had the personality when I’m kinda reserved and shy at first before opening up and be a total lunatic. But honestly, I stayed for the dance. I didn’t know any of these guys, we weren’t “friends” yet, the people I knew started disappearing, yet if I wanted to follow them (later, they revived the old dance team as an independent group), like, I didn’t get along with them anyway? So I had nothing to lose, and I just had fallen in love with streetdancing  —eventho my hip-hop sucks ass!

I think it started to come together when one of the senior on the team asked me to join them to enroll in a competition. I was very excited. Although, honestly speaking, I had lots of difficulties catching up. This team was the team, you know, the people that just blended so well with good chemistry and all? I was an outsider, both to the team habits and choreo. I remember we only had about a week to train for the competition, and I was working my ass off so hard that I didn’t have time to think about being an outcast again. I just wanted to give it my all and not making the team looked silly on stage!

That was my very first competition with EDance. I hated the picture back then (because I was still white-washed and despised my tan skin) but now when I’m looking at it, fuck, I look alright! I mean, there weren’t any high-quality phone camera back then so we couldn’t do the tone justice, but right now all I can think about is how proud I am of myself. I started gotten into make up (and because I didn’t have many friends, I had lots of time practicing make up in my room) and it helped me bonding with the other members. I’m very grateful for the people in the picture: Ninit & Tepi who gave me the chance, Ko Allen who kept dancing with me until he graduated, and even Hezky who became a really good friend and still danced with me until when we both lived in Bali. Oh, and we won the thing! Not bad for a first-timer, huh?

As the official dance team of the faculty, EDance also performed in every single faculty party (re: the opening/closing celebration), including LoVED and EDO. It was my first time performing with such a big crew —EDance had twice the numbers of my first dance team- and it was such a different experience! I wasn’t particularly a fan of a megacrew performance but holy cow, there are things that can only look good when performed with a big crew! I’m beyond blessed to learn it with EDance.

On my second year dancing —third year in Uni- it was time for my generation (re: batch) to take over the leadership in the organization. I wasn’t elected or something, but by that time, I have grown so close to Elevernes that we basically became a whole squad, and we kinda have big influence on each other, and to the team. That year, our coach stepped down because he wanted to pursue formal career, so we found a new one. It was my best friend's boyfriend —then, ex now- The new coach brought a whole new flavor to our dance team, we went from full-blown hip-hop to more of girl’s hip-hop and then, slutty (LOL!) depending on the personality of the team. 

I’d say it was the beginning our my golden era of dancing. I moved out to the same boarding house with my best friends, which were also my dance team mates, and we spent many hours practicing for fun, watching dance videos, and basically just being excited for performing and enrolling competitions. EDance was at the peak of its time, we had the best dancers in the University, having the same vision and mission, the crazy fearless attitude, and just the same level of passion for dancing. We basically invented the trend of sexy and fierce girls-style dance in the city (it was a small city, so it wasn’t that great, but also because it was such a small city and everyone knows everyone else, it was pretty cool) because the core team of the crew were the same students from our batch, Eleveners, who just had the same vibration for that particular dance style.

Sadly, all good things must come to and end. And I regret that my end at EDance wasn’t a pleasant one. I started dating this guy and he gradually become very toxic and abusive that I was utterly gas-lighted and was too scared to leave his side.He told me he didn’t like my friends from the dance team and wanted me to hang out with them less (I ended up spending 24/7 with him for more than a year!). There were some moments when I felt like I gotta choose between dancing and my boyfriend, and my insecure-stupid ass chose the latter. I grew distant from my friends, and eventually I neglected dancing.

The turning point was when I, as a member of the “core” team, was offered to join a competition, and I had no hesitation to refuse it. But along the way, my boyfriend was getting more and more intimidating that I was too scared to leave him alone (coz I felt like he’d cheat on me if I didn’t stick around), and I ghosted my friends. I kept justifying my action telling myself —and some other friends- that I couldn’t join the competition because I had a final exam. It wasn’t entirely a lie, because I did have final exam, but deep down I knew what pissed my friends off was my ghosting, the fact that I ignored them and let them freak out on the last minute. It was one of my life regrets. 

After that incident, I only showed up for one more project, a dance video produced by the faculty’s filmography club. My relationship with my friends was already bad, most of them stopped talked to me, and I even got unofficially “kicked out” from the core team. I was in a weak mental state — from both the dating abuse and the guilt- and I thought to myself that I couldn’t go on like this. So the next semester, on the last year of my university life, I stopped coming to the practice.

I truly wished things went differently from how it was. EDance was the first true dance family that I had, it will always be the highlight of my life, and sometimes I’m so angry at myself for being so unreasonably stupid at that time. But you know, we all struggle with different demons inside, and I’m just the kind of person who needed to be thrown down to thrive, so I guess I deserved that. I am now in good relationships with all my EDance friends, time indeed had healed us, however, I think I do owe them a huge apology for my actions. Although I was hurting, I had no right to ruin their joys either. 

So yeah, that’s how my EDanceperience went by, it’s been eight years since I first found by this family, but I will always be an EDancer at heart, forever. 

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Eleveners!

Oh my God, I’m going to get really emotional writing this!!!

In 2012, STiBA merged with FBS (now FLA; Faculty of Language and Arts) of UKSW. For your note, FBS was one of the busiest faculty in UKSW, like, really, they had so many events in one term year, even after excluding the general University events. Two of the biggest faculty events were about ‘battle of the batches” in which each batch had to sent teams to compete in various competitions to determine the best batch of the year. I’m not gonna lie, they took the title very seriously.

My first involvement with this started with the event called LoVED (Loading Via English Days), which basically a series of competitions about the English subjects we had been learning —if I haven’t told you clearly, my major was English Literature- like spelling bee, drama, story-telling, trivia, etc (Idk, I generally only join one competition beside the opening march —each batch marched in costumes according to their theme and screaming their slogans). And there is one particular competition that was only known to be held by this faculty: dance.

So basically, the dance competition is more like a cabaret/musical story-telling, we need to tell a story that reflects our batch theme, through dancing. The students of FBS were told to ask the students from formerly STiBa to join them, as it would also be their events since the merger. Me and one of my friend (I’ll tell you why it was only both of us on the next post) joined the batch 2011 team, as a “token of friendship” they offered me to be the leading lady.

The theme was “Indonesia” so we picked Ramayana as our storyline, with a (lot of) twist. I remember we were a bit awkward at first —for a side note, somehow there was some kind of invisible tension between FBS and STiBA students, lol, dramas!- but after spending so much time together for the sake of the performance, it kind of melted away.

I remember we used to hang out on a small shop until late at night (many times I had to start over because of my boardinghouse’s curfew) and just had fun, like playing cards or talking shit. Oh those times when your biggest problem is how you were gonna wake up for a morning class!

And the rest was history, these people instantly became my best friends. It was a drastic change for me as I used to be so bored in my Uni life, after Eleveners happened, I felt like 24 hours in a day wasn’t enough! I wanted to hang out more, dance more, and just be young and stupid more! I can’t describe how much love I have for every single person in this picture.

Fun fact: there were so many talented dancers in the faculty that we never get to win the dance competition until our last year!!! We went all out for that year and we also (finally) became the best batch. I swear it felt like winning some sort of Nobel Prize or something! So much tears!!! I can still remember the feelings of joy even when I’m only reminiscing like now (and I’m deliberately using so many punctuation marks to show my excitement).

That’s a story of LoVED and there’s another story of EDO (English Department Olympics) which from the name, you can guess, is a sport competition. I’m really bad at sport but y’all know what I’m good at: shaking my ass dancing! There isn’t any dance competition in EDO, but there’s cheerleading.

/pəˈteɪtoʊ/ - /pəˈteɪtəʊ/ (if you’re an English major, you’ll get this joke)

Long story short, I became cheerleader once a year for three years.

Again, we never won the competition for three years. On our last year, the rule suddenly changed —I seriously can never understand how the most annoying people ALWAYS get their way to be in a committee and fuck things up???- we couldn’t perform cheerleadance (which is hard cheerleading-half dancing) and it had to be pure cheerleading. We were pissed off, like really pissed off.

I mean, how do you expect 10 amateur girls or more who mostly can’t even do the splits (including me) to do pure cheerleading, which consists of many difficult gymnastic moves and dangerous manoeuvre for straight 10 minutes??? I wouldn’t even last for three, honestly. And it was our last year, too!!! Our only chance to win the fucking thing once and for all!!!

But sis, oh how we snapped! We hired a cheerleading coach, and we said, fuck the rules, we’re fucking doing the cheerleadance. And it was the craziest, most intense training I’ve ever done in my life! I mean, physically, I was pretty strong already from all the dancing I did, but mentally, it was on another level. And I am still trembling with pride remembering how much we were determined to win, and kept going on trough those hellish training! (I wish we had the same excitement to study, but, lol)

The craziest part of that was: we were training with the whole song on slower tempo until D-2!!! And we couldn’t get it right. On D-2, our coach came with a happy face, saying, I finished the song!! And it was twice the tempo we had been training. It was chaotic. Yet it turned out so good on the performance day!!! I wish I had the video and can show you guys the golden era of my physical abilities!!!

AND WE FUCKING WIN!!! FINALLY!!!

I couldn’t get any prouder of these girls (including myself —girl, I fucking cartwheeled! It was bad, but still, I did it!)

And yes, we also won the best batch that year. That was crazy. We finished our last active year as students —since most of us would be busy individually with final projects afterwards- REIGNING AND PROUD!!! I always remember how resilient my fellow eleveners were, we were the batch with the least number, there were prolly not even 20 boys —they worked extra hard since they had to enter more competitions with no subs. And no shit, we had to work extra hard for almost everything in the battle of the batches, and it was all worth it in the end. We took the crown once, and once was enough to remember for a lifetime.

DAMNNN I GOT THE CHILLS!!! I MISS ALL OF THESE MFS!!!

So yeah, it’s also probably why I feel that I belong there, we’re kinda alike —batch 2011 and I. We’re good, but not effortless good that we gotta work our ass off to reach the top. To think back on how I’ve been living my life, I’m glad I learnt and trained with eleveners, the underdog that raise to the top, and become the legends of our own.

[abnahaya]

A Late Thank You

My second entry to the performer challenge is not an easy one to put into words. 

Fast forward into my Uni life, I transferred to UKSW when I was 21, it was still STiBA back then, a smaller college under UKSW’s umbrella. Honestly, I only enrolled here because it was way cheaper than the main campus. Moving from Bandung to Salatiga could be very overwhelming—esp to note that at that time I was burdened with an immense amount of guilt towards my parents (for not studying well in Bandung)- I felt out of place most of the time.

Then one my friends, asked me if I wanna join a dance team that she was planning to create. There weren’t many students in our campus and she needed at least 10 people to keep the extracurricular going (and to pay the coach in a fair share). I was probably still in my 2nd semester, feeling bored with the repeating materials and almost no close friends, so I agreed. Little did I know, that moment was a big turning point for me.

It was my first time learning hip-hop. I had been dancing almost all my life, but it was mostly traditional dances —the only one that wasn’t a traditional dance was when I created a modern dance for my primary school graduation, lol- so the whole thing was very different for me. In traditional dancing, I needed a lot of self-restraints: my poses, the length of my steps, my facial expressions, almost all of them has their own rule to follow, very precise and constant. As for hip-hop, the movements were huge and sloppy —I danced the female parts in traditional dances, which requires gentle and small movements- if I may describe. It was very rough and basically the complete opposite of the dance I had been learning so far.

However, dancing freed me. I was probably pretty depressed and stressed by the things happened in my life and I honestly couldn’t feel the joy as liberating as when I was dancing. Then we did our first performance as a team, and it was all history. I fell in love again with dancing, this time, hard.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit sad that until recently, I was in a big denial regarding the full story of how I fall in love with the street dance world. I was greatly affected by shallow thoughts and unhealthy relationships, even though I was indeed to young to notice. Today, I wanna embrace the truth.

Despite of how this might sound as a humble-brag, I was good, probably the best one in the group. Then I became an arrogant cunt (sorry, the Australian culture is rubbing on me). I started to feel superior between my team mates, and although it might be true, I wasn’t supposed to be like that.  

The superior feelings was also supported by the fact that I was the girl coming from the big city, and I felt like I knew better of the world from everyone else. I had the better fashion sense, I did make up better, I knew how to act on stage, and so on. Not a single bit I care about others’ journey and appreciate their effort to “level up”. I remember I kept being defensive, refusing to “tone myself down” for others because I believed they were the ones needed to step their game up. Whoa, I was a bitch.

No wonder no one liked me. LOL. It was pretty obvious that I was an outcast in the group, only there to even out the numbers instead of truly being a part of the team. I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t be bothered to try to blend in because I didn’t wanna change my self —which, I think, is not entirely wrong, but needed to be added more perspectives, I mean, being nice to others don’t always mean you gotta create a whole new personality to match them.

I was young and I had no life —like literally, I lived in online world for 2 years prior to my transfer to UKSW- and they were also young and inexperienced. We were all too naive to perceive a complex thinking manner that, it doesn’t always need to be black and white —as a matter of fact, there can never be only black and white. Our world was too small to see things in colours.

For many years, I considered this part of memories with this team as a “bad” one. I felt out of place, I didn’t like most of the things we did as a team, I didn’t like the costume choices, heck I despises the entire experience being in this team. But now I grow older, and I look at the pictures, and honestly I wouldn’t change a thing. This was the team that introduce me to the passion of my life, the thing I couldn’t think of living without, the biggest source of joy in me.

So today as I sit here and write this post, I laugh at our adolence years. How we liked to make simple things complicated even though we couldn’t handle the complication. But I also want to swallow my pride and say thank you, for the opportunity of making memories with you all. Years later, in the present day, all the black colour I thought I’ve poured all over that time, has faded away. What’s left is just memories.

The memories that makes me who I am today. And I will be forever grateful.

Love,

Ruth 

[abnahaya]

How It All Started

So for a bit of context, I was mentioned for a new challenge on Instagram called artist/performer challenge, in which basically I need to post 10 pictures of me every day for 10 days in a performance situation with no explanation to bring awareness to the arts. However, because my annoying self don’t wanna ruin the aesthetic of my instagram feeds, and I need to really start my writing habits again, instead of only posting the picture without context, I wanna post a whole ass story. The next 10 days will be my own journey in art.

Growing up in a conservative Javanese family, my grandfather held the traditional value of teaching arts to the children to train their “emotional brain” —which I actually appreciate, even though I know it’s a pain in the ass for some people- since he was a traditional dancer, all of his children were taught to dance. So my mum tried this on me and my brother, she enrolled me in traditional dancing course when I was super small, like 4 or 5 yo, then a violin course when I was 15. 

My parents, esp my mum, knew from the beginning that I inherited the art blood. I liked dancing, singing, acting, drawing, even when I didn’t really like playing the violin, my teacher was fond of me (not in a creepy way, ofc). I was quite an art prodigy. I have been getting on stage since young age too, my parents —who were quite often in charge of Christmas/Easter celebration in our church- always tried to make me perform, in every way: Balinese dancing, Javanese dancing, semi-ballet musical, theatre, singing, playing the violin, and even the picture above was from when I did a monologue.

The problem was that I had always been a big rebel. I didn’t like to be told what to do. I love going on stage and I know I’m good at it, but the more people push me to do it, the more I’d be hiding in the crowd. Unfortunately, my parents still have a hard time unlearning their old ways of “telling me what to do”, so we always end up fighting. Most of the time, our fights never has any closures, and just left hanging without any clear result of what each parties should and should not do. 

I also overestimated myself, I quitted playing violin, I stopped drawing, my band was breaking up, and I only act when I was really needed to. Without hardwork or training, raw talent will only be “talent”, and nothing more. I might have started as a 10 yo with a 15 yo talent, but as soon as I neglect my training, I became a 20 yo with the same 15 yo talent. It wasn’t good enough.

There are times when I regret my stubbornness, like, why???

But oh well, what’s done is done. I made my choice and no matter how poor that was, I ought to live up to it. I’m happy enough to be able to be aware of myself, the actions and consequences I had in the past, even my weak and strong points, also what I aspire to be in the future (haven’t figured this out quite yet tho). However, life never runs out of chances, I know I can —and I should- try to keep going at the things I love, including my passion for art, no matter how many times I gotta fall and restart all over again. I learn and manifest this in dancing —which I will be talking a lot on the next posts.

So, that is my semi-humble-brag story that underlies the whole challenge for the next 10 days. Write to you tomorrow and keep on doing you, boo!

[abnahaya]

Finished 2000+ glute workout in two months! 🍑 Ok but honestly, I always have a plump figure, it frustrated me a lot when I became "the biggest" among my friends, or even when I do the most workout, I still couldn't slim down. I hate it when people tell me "does your workout work?" or "you should take care of your body more" like I AM TRYING, BITCH! I realize I don't appreciate my body like I should. So as I'm trying to figure out my own pace, I start with the body parts I love the most, that I'm always proud of. I do a lot of glute workout an they show results easily (also because I want to be able to twerk like I used to), whenever I get frustrated and hate my body, I work on these. it helps a lot in building my mental confidence to keep on loving my body in my own way coz hey, it's all I've got! #ramblingruthie #bodypositive #100glutechallenge #100squatchallenge https://www.instagram.com/p/B3VnGBOAc-m/?igshid=6vr5f1b64gwy

[abnahaya]

Digging into My Insecurity

As I write this post, I just randomly replied to a “gifted” Twitter mutual coz he was saying that he’d give random suggestion to his followers. He told me: Insecurity rooted from self-doubt. Stop it.

Rewind to half a year ago, when bae & I joined a couple class as a prerequisite to our marriage, we started with answering a bunch of questions (hundreds of them, actually) that covers Personality Trait, Sex & Affection, Parenting, Background and Finance. On our first meeting with the reverend, he told us our result. Overall it was good, but I remember clearly that the result showed that I was highly stressed (probably due to the wedding plans and all) and I have a very low self-esteem. Like, 20 out of 100, or maybe less, idk, it was on a chart.

Now, if you know me in person, you’d laugh. No way! You don’t look like it!

Maybe I never want the world to know.

Or maybe I secretly wish anyone would notice.

Both are correct.

***

Back in the days, I don’t know about the habit of shaming, people do it all the time. Even there was a time when I thought it was better to get shamed frontally rather than having someone talking bad behind your back, because betrayal was such a painful thing. You see, I grew up in a conservative Javanese family, we uphold the value of shame a lot. It’s a shame to talk about sex, it’s a shame for children to talk back to their parents, it’s a shame for parents to show their weakness to their family, it’s a shame to let others know about bad things that happens between your family, and so on. They can say anything about this tradition, but what I feel I was taught mostly in my life is shame, therefore I wasn’t surprised at all when I other people actually made me feel ashamed of things like my appearance, my test result, my opinions, etc. The best dogma I’ve ever received from my culture is to hold back and accept the shame, because it’s a shame to shame others even when they shame you, if that even makes sense.

Eventually, I forgot about being “shamed”, and began to accept what was told as mere facts, like “Oh dear you and your boyfriend are like coffee and milk, you look so silly together!” When I looked at the mirror, I did see a tan girl, and my boyfriend at the time was indeed white as pearl, so it was kind of true? I thought as I tried to ignore the weird, dark feeling creeping from the back of my head. I shouldn’t take these things into the heart and just continue living, as I have always been taught, I needed to grow up and part of growing up is to face the harsh world that shames you pretty much for your entire life.

So I did. However, the things I tried so hard not to reach deep enough inside my heart, went straight to my brain instead. I started believing them. Not only the “facts” that shoved down my ears, but also countless of possibilities calculated from it. I started making strategies to battle the “bad things” about me. If I was dark-skinned and not as attractive as my fellow fair-skinned girlfriends, I had to build my own ways to get closer to the guys (I was a teenager and I read too many teenlit novels), such as being their closest friends whom they could always count on and maybe, one day could steal their heart from my kind personality which had completely no ulterior motives. This narrative then developed to be the cool girl strategy, in which, I became so fun and easy-going and with a mind “similar” to a boy, became rEaLlY dIfFEreNT fRoM oThER gIRLs, and basically ended up catching feelings to 100 guy friends who never took me seriously, because duh? Boys just wanna have fun!

Wow, it’s pretty disgusting when I put it into words now, but the 2000-something me truly believed in it to the point that I actually thought I defeated the things people used to shamed me for. The problem was that, they —other people never actually stop shaming me at all. Instead, the shaming evolved, sometimes into something just completely different or other times, worse. By the time I thought they would stop calling me ugly, they called me fat, bitch and still shaming my dark skin. No matter how I tried to show people my good side, they found hundreds bad things about me, over and over again. And I believed them.

I think what was even worse, was the fact that I also was consumed by the shaming culture that I took part of it too. At first, I used it for a self-defence, I didn’t want people to keep digging into my “bad sides” so I pointed out others that I considered worse than me, to be a juicier object of shame. Some people really deserved it, according to me, trying to make myself feel better in silence. Soon it became a habit for me too, not only I needed more approval, I also wanted to reach a better position in others’ eyes. I did the thing I feared the most when I was a little girl, I betrayed my friends, I shamed them behind my back. I felt like I didn’t receive enough recognition in the relationship that I needed to convince others —but mostly myself, that these people had nasty sides on them.

I didn’t feel so much shame in the shaming anymore because I knew I had the power to shame them too. In fact, I have abandoned the understanding of the word for so long that I didn’t think it mattered. Nothing was more important than saving my face, and if possible, delivering greatness and praise to my feet.

***

Sadly, I had to learn the lesson the hard way. There was a point in my life when I lost everything. Not physically, but mentally. I lost many support systems, was betrayed by them, and fell straight into a deep hole of depression. There was a saying that it’s good to reach the rock bottom, since the only way is up from there. They just didn’t mention how rough the climb was.

As I sat alone with my naked self in the deepest pit of mourning, I counted the comrades that had left me. Confidence, opportunity, cheerfulness, positivity, badass-ness, toughness, bravery. Only one was there, insecurity. In the same moment I realized, insecurity didn’t just come around when I had nothing, it was always there. In fact, she was the one holding the banquet filled with all other “characteristics”. Insecurity was the one opening the shame chamber and locking me inside it, making myself believe that I was out there conquering the world when I was actually always here, in the bottom of a dark, gloomy place, reciting bad words like mantras that would make the darkness go away for a while.

I felt like time wrapped backwards before me, to my first visit inside the pit. I was full of shame, I was burdened with guilt, and I had a terrible feeling in my stomach. That was my introduction to insecurity, yet I was too young and too naïve to recognize it. People kept telling me to get over it, yet all I heard was noises around the pitch-black space, without anyone bringing a light. So, I learned to make a fake one because I was so desperate to see one, I never thought of getting out.

***

It’s been years from that point of my life. My eyes are used to the darkness now. Insecurity no longer takes control of my head, instead I hold its hand and climb up together. Some days, we fell rolling down, it hurts, and my eyes are blocked with tears, but others we kept on going for hours, days and even weeks. Obviously, we haven’t reached the end of the vertical tunnel just yet, as I could refer to the opening of this post, but along the way I’ve met my new comrades. Sincerity, passion, patient, and love. Sometimes confidence comes along, but it hasn’t showed up as much as before, and that’s okay. I can feel bravery pushes me from behind every now and then, and I wish to embrace it one day. I am still far from my purpose, but I finally know how to savour the journey.

I mean, I’m not surprised that “gifted” people (or simply psychiatrist) tell me that I’m insecure inside because I’ve practically been living with it my whole life, so that’s kind of true. It’s just so much different when I’ve acknowledged it myself. I’m still the same person, but many things also change within me. Like, when I’m easy going around guys, now I can truly say I don’t have any ulterior motives —not because I’m married (well, that too!) but because I am easy going, either with guys or girls. I can proudly say that being a tomboy was only a phase of my life, and that I don’t need to change anything in my appearances. I get to know myself better!

But I guess the best thing about making peace with my own insecurity is to actually be cool about the bad things that I used to avoid so much. If someone goes to my face and tells me to lose weight because I look like a pig, I’d just lift my shoulders and say, “I’m trying but I’m not rushing.” I can stand up to the things I truly believe in, no matter how much “shame” it brings according to other people, such as I believe we need to talk about sex openly because we desperately need a better sex education. And even though some new dilemmas and problems may arise from these, I’m no longer confused, because I’m not scared to go to that gloomy pit anymore, I have hopes and purpose that someday I will reach the light in the end of the tunnel —together with my insecurities, flaws and strong points on board.

[abnahaya]

It’s That Bad That Now I Talk Politics: A Rant

That was a clickbait, guys, I’m not going to preach about political things as I am not in a proper capability to do that. I’m sorry (not sorry) but I do still think that we all can and need to educate ourselves with the current social issues instead of hoping that someone “better” would spoon-feed it to us. However, I will provide a few reliable news link by the end of the post to give you insights about what happened.

Things are getting worse that people like me, who prefers to look up about how JLo learned how to pole dance from the internet rather than what my own President is doing, actually got off my comfort bubble screaming “HOLY SHIT!” then changing my profile pictures into some plain black hashtags in solidarity of my peers and fellow Indonesians. Yup, it’s that bad. If you hate politics as much as I do, understand this: I get it that you just wanna get everything over with, and you’re tired of all the negativity and you don’t know who to trust, but sadly, we’re not 10 years old anymore, we can’t afford to stay at the same level of ignorant as when we were a kid just because it’s not our cup of tea. I mean, look at Greta Thurnberg, that kid is screaming for her future, and so should we. I mean, in 30 years we are most probably still alive, though not in our prime age anymore. So yes, for people with big egos like us, think about our own futures! 

In this post, I will only stating my opinions and concerns towards a massive student demonstration that took place is various cities in indonesia yeterday. This is another complex and urgent issue, that has been spread out in many misleading ways by the western medias: the demonstration against the revision of the criminal code, anti-corruption bill, urging government to execute the anti-sexual violence bill, and of course, the environment issues.

As I mentioned before, many western media wrote misleading articles about the movement. Most of them only highlight a piece of the first point, that in the criminal code draft, pre-marital sex could be criminalized, including for the foreign tourists. So they simplify it into “sex laws”. like EXCUSE ME? There are so many problematic points in the code yet of course you gotta pick the sex points because Indonesia as the stereotype of taboo-ing the matter and/or because it actually the thing that can affect the western. Like, seriously, I had to lecture my husband when he shared a Facebook status about how Australians should stop taking vacation to Bali because of the “new law” while he had no idea what it was about (and so did the author of the post). White people seriously need to check their privilege and educate themselves regarding the issues that aren’t their story.

Anyway, As per this morning, the hashtag #HidupMahasiswa (Long Live the Students) has been #1 worldwide trend as the demonstrations that took place yesterday in many cities in Indonesia were conducted by hundreds of students from different Universities. Each of them wore their alma mater jackets to show solidarity and status as they didn’t want other civilians with hidden agenda to join. This honestly is the peak of my nationality, it’s like the best historical moment I’ve ever been through all my life. I tear up and sincerely having mixed feelings of worry and proud every time I stumble on the news.

I followed the real-time development of the movement since many of my peers are sharing it through social media. Yeah right, said the baby boomers, why believe social media? Oh maybe because the mainstream media doesn’t talk the truth about big issues due to some private interests. These are real people with real friends and communities, some of them I know personally, and let’s admit, social media is our power in this generation. These people share their genuine experiences and tackle the false issues based on what they see in the field. 

Some points that I noted from people who actually were in the field is that many of the allegations by the parliament on TV were NOT true, such as the claim that the students demonstrated with violence. The thing is the students did not start the chaos, police started shooting them with tear gas and they panicked and started running away. Imagine hundreds of people that can’t see clearly, in pain, panicking and running to so many directions. The students asked the police to stop but they didn’t stop, many students actually warned each others not to get provoked. The chaos mentioned started when it was getting dark by unknown civilians who didn’t wear alma mater jacket. The clarifications were very precise, from many angles, and even civilians who happened to be in locations said the same thing. Not to mention the victim of police violence, many students had to be taken to hospitals for injuries.

It’s very sad to see people with privileges posting on their Facebook page shaming these brave students saying that they were dumb for not calculating other civilians who could use this opportunity to start chaos. I am filled with rage reading how they conveniently type from the comfort of their homes, that demonstrating is stupid and irrelevant and inviting violence. These people watched the news from mainstream TV medias who only interviewed the elites of the governments being in denial of their mistakes, and never show the other side of the story. Some became a delusional fan of the President, only caring about news saying that there were never any request from the students to drag him down.

What was even more upsetting, when I looked at the creative demonstration posters uploaded to Facebook, I found a lot of disgusting comments towards women protesters. People, mostly men, wrote like, “I should start raping then.” And even one of the elite government officer tweeted how the demonstration was “infiltrated by liberals who wants to do adultery sin”. The head of People’s Representative Council of Indonesia called a female journalist, “honey” as he was answering questions in an interview, followed by men’s audience laughter.

These are exactly why we need the anti-sexual harassment bill! Look at our sex education system, it lacks so much because of the “taboo” culture that tends to block information, so that people keep being clueless and missing the real point of the education: how to use contraception, the importance of consent, etc. And instead of educating properly, they suggest to block the entire sex education?  Sex will always be there and people will always find ways to do it, it’s one of human’s basic instincts, The problem is how they can have better, safer sex instead of how they to make them stop having sex at all.

These old geezers should face that values have changed in today’s society, they should’ve realized that the old Indonesian way to block everything “bad” is never the answer. It’s 2019 and we need to catch up with time. As time flows, things change, values shift, and we need an open mind to always be “relatable”. Today, ageism is no longer acceptable, just because you’re older, doesn’t mean you always know better.

The seniors said that students should be at their class studying, when on other times complaining about how much millennial and Gen Z don’t care about the government. They want us to listen to them coz they are the adults, forgetting that we are adults too, just because we haven’t worked as long as you, doesn’t mean we haven’t developed the same (or maybe better) critical thinking that makes an adult, adult. We have the rights to speak up and be listened to, especially because we’re the ones going to suffer all the consequences in the long run.

I believe yesterday’s movement would become one of the turning points of Indonesia, we still haven’t gotten an exact, satisfying answer towards our demands, heck we still haven’t gotten the respect we deserve as the citizen of this nation. However I’m sure, more young people are becoming more aware of what’s happening in the country and hopefully more will join us in the fights for humanity and justice.

Recommended articles:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-indonesia-politics-rights-bill-explai/explainer-its-not-only-about-sex-indonesias-divisive-criminal-bill-idUKKBN1W91DE

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/indonesia-protests-80-students-hurt-police-clashes-190925044211780.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indonesia-students-rally-against-changes-to-corruption-law/2019/09/24/e860a64a-deb5-11e9-be7f-4cc85017c36f_story.html

https://nasional.tempo.co/read/1252142/gelombang-demonstrasi-mahasiswa-menggulung-dominasi-dpr

[abnahaya]

Jesy Nelson and I Can Finally Look at Our Old Photos Without Feeling Bad

I’m not a famous person, I can still count how many cruel online comments that I get, but I remember them all. There was a time when I was a dancer in a nightclub and they uploaded my picture with my fellow dancer who was younger and cuter —according to society’s beauty standard, and many of the people made fun of my features. Or another time when I received a weird and offensive question on a social media platform about how I gained so much weight. Even though I know that these aren’t the slightest true statements, and that I shouldn’t think of them, I can’t erase them from my mind. I try not to dwell on them but it’s so easy to recall those moments in a flash.

Now imagine hundreds or even thousands of hates comments every day for five years.

A few days ago, I watch a documentary of Jesy Nelson, a personnel of British girl group Little Mix. I like Little Mix but honestly, I don’t follow their journey from the start, they just caught my attention when “Wings” was released. Apparently, ever since their X-factor days, Jesy had been bullied online because of her looks and it affected her a lot. It broke my heart when Jesy told the BBC three that on the night Little Mix won X-factor, she was actually sad and devastated, she didn’t care about winning, all she wanted was to go home, but she couldn’t destroy the joy of her fellow band mates. At that point, all the bullying had gotten inside her head, overwriting her own ideas of herself. Not even the achievement of her dreams could chase the fears away. In the documentary that left audience weeping —including yours truly, Jesy told how she couldn’t look at her old pictures and videos because of deep trauma they evoked. Even after losing weight and applying makeup, she still hated herself.

***

I remember when I met my teacher from Junior High School days and the first thing she told me was, “Oh you’re prettier now, you used to be pitch black” (not trying to be racist but she literally said the word). I told my mum and she laughed it off—because it’s true, she said. And even though deep in my heart I wasn’t flattered one bit by that statement, I had to brush it off and forcefully telling myself that I was at least getting better. But even so, I couldn’t bring myself to look at my old photos because I thought I looked horrible. I erased all the old profile pictures and hid the tagged photos on Facebook. One time my friend uploaded one of our old picture and I felt so disgusted with my own face —although all I said to her was: “OMG LOL”.

I must say I’m lucky I’m a nobody, because I can easily forget about the times those “bad memories” comes into surface and they don’t pop up that often if not because of Facebook Most of my friends were too busy with their life to reminisce the old days, and I wouldn’t even do it in a million years, or so I thought.  However, once it happens, it’s like watching a horror movie. I don’t want to see it, even the sound itself already scares me, yet everyone keep shoving it into my face and telling me to look until I have to peek from between my fingers. Usually ends up with me looking for a brief two minutes that feels so long, before I squeak and close my eyes again, hoping that the image that has been carved into my brain can disappear quickly. But of course, it doesn’t, instead it’s going to haunt me for a couple of nights and making me feel uneasy.

I hated looking at my own face because it reminded me of how “ugly” I was, that all the features I had back in the days were laughable. It also made me sad that I thought there were so many wonderful memories, great stories and experiences, yet what people would remember from me was just how unattractive I was. I know vividly that my look was a big insecurity for me in those years, and even though some of my closest people were cheering for me at that time, as time pass by, they said the same thing with the bullies. One time my mum told me that she mentioned the name Naomi Campbell the supermodel only to make me feel better, but she never thought that Naomi was pretty, she was just simply stating we share the same skin tone. She laughed again as she continued describing how silly I was to believe her so easily, and that my teacher was right.

I tried to laugh it off many times, too. After all, those time has passed. I am now good in applying makeup, knows what clothes to wear, and not as terrible looking as before. I have grown into an adult and expected to face “criticism” with grace and a light heart. I tried not to be one of the “snowflake generation” whom offended easily in trivial matters. At least that was what I was told.

***

I believe how Jesy’s documentary could reach so many hearts are that because many people have been through similar experiences. Maybe not online, and maybe not by thousands of people, but just enough to hurt them. Others can also relate to the symptoms she describes on tape, maybe these people didn’t even think of getting bullied but at some points, they understand how it feels to just despise the image you see in the mirror. We all know very well how powerful words are, sadly, because at some points we have been hurt by others’ words.

Jesy went to see a beauty image consultant and we could watch short sessions between the two of them. In the second visit, Jesy was showed her old footage from the X-factor days and even further back to her childhood pictures, it was the first time she saw them after years. The consultant asked her what the old Jesy would think if she was told that she would have her dream coming true in the future, would she think of being sad? Of course not. The wake-up call for Jesy was when she was reminded that who she had become today was the result of the evolution of her past self, that she wouldn’t be able to reach her dream without the past Jesy inside her, and that she wouldn’t survive and become stronger if not from the painful journey the past Jesy had gone through to become the present Jesy.

I had a similar revelation, despite that I didn’t have to visit any consultant and simply just had extra time to look within myself. My wake-up call was just when I scrolled my Twitter timeline and finding a post where a guy put his new picture and a childhood picture together, saying that he didn’t change much. I looked through my tagged photos and saved a few of my old Junior High School pictures, the period when I was in a weird transition, leaving my cute childhood behind and not yet arriving into the graceful adult, basically the worst pages of my life lookbook. I stared at both pictures from different decades, puberty didn’t hit me like a truck, but I sure have evolved with time.

I mean, maybe I’d have a slightly better picture if iphone —or at least Xiaomi had existed in early 2000s. But that’s the point. Time has changed. I have changed. There have been so many things came in my way ever since and I survived. That skinny, curly-haired girl is still here inside me as I am inside her. I wouldn’t be able to be who I am now if she hadn’t put so much effort and positivity all along. Just as I picked up another picture from my golden days, when I was in Uni, the period in which I miss almost everything —slim figure, fun days, dancing non-stop, life free of responsibilities, and not having any more regrets. I no longer hate my few extra kgs or how my leg feels weaker when I twerk, not anymore, because I have everything in the present me. I have me.

We heard many wisdom sayings, like: life is like a roller coaster, just enjoy the ride —or some sort. It’s not wrong. I just want to add a bit of a note, that is to go to the toilet and take a look at the mirror. Appreciate yourself today. You are alive. Then remember another quote: life is a gift, that’s why we call it present. Your life today is the gift given by you from yesterday, last week, and even 8 years ago. Enjoy it. If it’s a bit too much today, scream it out, remember, everyone in the roller coaster are freaking out anyway. You’re not alone and you are beautiful.

[abnahaya]

my dad when I got my nose piercing: "Don't you have any other better things to do???"

[abnahaya]

I’m a Paradox and Today I’m Overwhelmed

I like to describe myself as a paradox, I always try to embrace the “two sides of a coin” that lies within me, many times two opposites. Yesterday was one of the days when I was overwhelmed with paradoxical emotions, leaving me a bit confused myself about what to feel.

I got the news that my grandfather passed away yesterday. He was always a quiet person, I never talked much with him even though I visit him yearly, but he was a pretty cool person. I remember when my then boyfriend –now husband, visited my family to ask my hand in marriage –and my mum dragged him to visit all my grandparents as well, my grandpa who had already blind gently said that he was happy for us. He kept trying to make a conversation with Jake even though he couldn’t talk in English. How Jake slowly held his hand and helped him to walk around the house was probably the cutest thing. I always thought of my grandpa as a cute person –maybe because all my grandpas dotted me, so I had a soft spot for elderly men. Grandpa’s death wasn’t a surprise for us because he was old and even though he didn’t have any terminal illness, he became a lot weaker ever since he lost his sight from cataract, my family had always silently known that he didn’t have much time left.

Unfortunately, life has been tough on this side too. It’s a lot harder for me to get a job here, even simple ones –maybe due to my visa, or my too-Indonesian background, idk. Being at home all the time, I used up a little too much of our internet quota, so I had to hold myself a lot to use the internet for at least the next two weeks. That’s why I received the news about grandpa a bit too late, and I couldn’t answer the videocall from my family when they arrived at his funeral. I told them my condolences and everything but of course, as an Indonesian with a communal family, I felt very guilty for not doing “enough” to show my loss of grandpa. Not that I even know how to make it right, either.

As I was on my phone, I looked up to the social media and alas! People were freaking out! Turned out the parliament and the government of Indonesia had been enacting problematic and controversial bill, KUHP (penal code) while putting an important and hard-fought bill on hold: RUU PKS (prevention of sexual violence bill). One of the activists that I follow on Instagram went on a rally to protest and updated the development through her Instagram stories (she was later invited to join the meeting in when the parliament discuss about the importance of the anti-sexual violence bill, along with the opposition mass), and confirmed how the bill was once again put on hold despite of some parliament member who supported the bill. The penal code, on the other hand, was by the skin of our teeth. Imagine when you could get thrown into jail because a consensual sex, and the one reporting you is the village chief who you don’t even know. Yes, jail term for men and women who have sex outside of marriage –or even merely living together as roommate, someone who talks about sex and contraception even for educational purposes, and even forbid abortions for any reason but medical complications. And that’s just some pieces of it. I am terrified for my nation.

I tried to get a grip of myself and try to be positive for the rest of my day. I remembered that I’ve got a dance class to sign up for. After facing all my cultural problem trying to ask my husband to pay for the class, and even though I might not be able to post too much excitement for the sake of self-modesty in such a bad atmosphere between my social circle, I thought at least, I could escape the misery. I asked a tarot reader before, on a free card pull session of yes/no question, and she said I should go to the dance class (I was hesitating because I feel bad to spend money for leisure when money is tight in our household) and so I was getting more determined to go! Unfortunately, once again, life squeezed a lemon on my freshly wounded heart. The dance class was sold out. Apparently, I the website didn’t display the “sold out” sign on the mobile version, I only found out when I opened it in my PC, as I tried to pay. And that was the last dance session before summer (it’s still springs here until December).

Between all the depressing mood, my best friend texted me. She heard about my grandpa and gave her condolences. After a brief talk, she asked for my bank account number. I was confused, I wasn’t the one to whom she could give consolation money too. But she said, she just wanted to “treat” me to buy boba tea or any snacks, because she missed me, and she hoped I could remember her while getting my treats. That was it, I couldn’t help it anymore. I cried silently. It was the sweetest thing! I was so touched that I almost forgot my sorrows, my heart warmed up in an instant.

And then I remember my meditation that morning –if it could be called a meditation, but hey, I’m trying! I told myself –and whoever was listening to my inner voice, that I wanted to live in the present. I somehow remembered the big message I got from the Summer Healing session: live in the present, and also from the book I read for it, Love Without Conditions by Paul Ferrini: I don’t have to seek happiness, it’s not in the place with ifs; “If I have enough money…”, “If I were in Bali….”, “If tomorrow we do this…”, happiness is today, now, at this very moment. And so, when I asked myself that evening, after gotten my heart break from sadness, guilt, disappointment, fear, and some warm fuzzy feeling when someone care: did I deserve to be happy? Does it make me a bad person to be happy whilst others are not?

No. I could be happy, and maybe I was happy. Of course, it didn’t make me a bad person, because this was my happiness. You get it? It’s a paradox. You can be happy and sad and disappointed and content and afraid and relieved and angry and calm at the same time, in fact, it’s what we are most of the times! We’re human and life is crazy, we encounter so many things in one day, heck even in one minute that can create many feelings inside us. It’s the prove we’re alive. Only a lot of times, we think about a particular thing or feeling so much –mostly negative ones, we forget that we still have other feelings filling our heart to. Or at other times, we force ourselves to feel only happiness, and denying other feelings, which drives us to a toxic positivity.

The trick of being a paradox is to just be one. Feel everything that’s coming to your plate and make yourself full, then let it go for another day. Your feelings are all valid and they are there for you. Feeling something doesn’t determine your worth, doing something does. It reminds me of a statement of a psychotherapist I quoted for my IGTV discussion: “it’s not the whole person that’s toxic, but it’s their behaviour or the relationship you have with them.” For example, if instead of writing this post I wrote a tweet saying: “Fuck you all pussies, suck it up, our country is a shit hole. But idc, I’m happy today!” Well, I’m an asshole, because by then I value others’ feelings less and probably denying my own negative feelings too. When it comes to social context, it’s always better to realize the boundaries –which I would save for another day’s post.

But basically, I just wanna say that it’s okay to be overwhelmed with life. It’s fucking normal. What I do is that I embrace it into my identity and try to do what I can for the better, even only signing an online petition or writing a blog post. Cherish yourself first!