The Exposed

Twenty-six was something borrowed.

She went by in a flash, yet she was also in slow motion. It didn’t feel like she was mine, as much as she was, and although everything about it was indeed mine, in a lot of ways it also wasn’t. 26 was her own analogy with her own language, who kept correcting—iterating—herself vigorously, so she wouldn’t be recorded entirely as a flaw, a bug, a glitch, or a hideous mess. 

Just recently I saw this Instagram Reel of a potter smashing and breaking her flawed products to turn them back into clay and recycle them into new pieces. While I do not dare to say that 26—I—was a flawed product myself, 26 was the year when a lot of things got really, really messy. 

A couple of (messy) examples: First of all, I thought I could write. Four semesters, ten unfinished drafts, maybe thirty-thousand words later, I realized writing is about both starting and finishing and all this time I’ve been only floating in the middle. Second, I thought I was smart and brave, especially being one of the few international ESL students, and also one of the only two Indonesians in the program, until I started taking classes with students who have spoken—and written—English their whole lives, who bring novel manuscripts and 30-page brilliant short stories to workshops, some of which have already been published here there everywhere, who win competitions and receive fellowships, who have taught in at least three different continents, who by default I deemed superior. With that, Smart and Brave silently exited the room. Dumb and Scared took their place instead. Lastly, I thought I knew what I wanted, had life half-figured and sort of planned out. Turns out I have only been half-living this whole time, with absolutely no idea what I’m doing and where I’m going, and meeting different people with different backgrounds and their different languages with their different, super supreme YouTube-podcast-book-meme references and their elaborate, sorted-out 10-year life plans, Notion-powered, Forbes30Under30-driven; made me grimace at my own life (obviously unsorted, unNotioned, unForbes), made me unwant what I had and want some things even harder. My dreams shape-shift. Some self-destruct, some become even more stubborn and pronounced. Either way, it ended up being too much. Too loud and too lonely. I ended up becoming one of those clay pots the potter smashed in her video. I broke. Too many times, at that.

-

Amidst all that fire in the house, as I am heavily self-trained to always find light in the darkness no matter how irrelevant and cringe such light can be, at 2:00 am as I cried myself to sleep I thought, what better place to be broken than New York, right? Wrong. Well at least I am in New York, right? Right, but also wrong. Despite only living here for two years-ish, I felt New York was too grand a stage for broken things. For battles I was bound to lose. For wars I wasn't prepared for. It’s too grand a stage for adult growing pains, which are basically aches everywhere in our body due to intense adulting activities (mostly the mental ones), where joy is something we pay in installments, yet horror and sadness are practically freebies. The real secret in @secretnyc Instagram page isn’t in what they tell us (10 tHiNGs yOu DoN’T wAnNa MiSs tHiS wEeKeNd), it’s in what they don’t: People bend in this city, but most of the times they break too. 

That being said, for the past seven, eight months, it has really taken a village for a day to start and to not suck, for the hours to go by without too much crying in between. In the first few months there wasn’t even a “village” to begin with, for I was alone, lonely, busy succumbing. My world was shaken up and for a lot of different reasons. New York, once a jewelry box, became a death trap. I was floating but more like a sad balloon—airless and crinkled, certainly not the majestic, colorful, and dreamy-looking hot-air kind—sadly sticking to her day-to-day routine: write in the mornings, class til noon, study until dinner, naps in between. 

But as much as I tried, my normal routine alone didn’t even cut it—it felt unsafe and temporary. Some days I was lucky to make it to places, some others I would be walking out of my apartment just to straight up u-turn and run back home. My naps became longer (when my normal ones already last for two hours, minimum) and turned to something I dreaded, but at the same time everything else was a lot worse. Whatever good, normal day I pulled a muscle to have, it wore off as soon as I showered and crawled back to bed. At nights, rest was impossible, but when I finally did fall asleep, I slept with a large hole in my chest, which became a perfect site for a festival of bad dreams. 

-

So I resorted to sticking my routine to other people’s. That is how my life became something desperately borrowed: the long library hours, the brisk walks to the boba place, study sessions, the Friday getaways to Yale, last minute lunch and dinner dates, weekend hangouts, half-priced ballet and Broadway shows, ice skating. Surprise pastries that saved my lifeless, bedridden, five-kg-less ass because I couldn’t, wouldn’t, stomach anything else; shoulders on which I helplessly smeared snot all over; ears worn off from having to hear me scream and cry during phone calls or during long conversations over my dining table; iftars and suhoors turned into sleepovers. I borrowed distractions from these people, who willingly shared pieces of their lives with me, which I used to fill the large hole in my chest, hoping they could help rid it of the nightmares, however momentary. I owe so much to so many. 

And what did this tiny, little piece of self do? Other than succumbing? Skipping classes, missing her meals? Seeing the days go by from her bedroom window? Hating people on Instagram who seemed contained and composed, happy and unbothered? And back to hating herself even more? Well, it woke up, and at some point, it got up from bed. Two times, it showed up to her pilates sessions. It also sought therapy. If anything, it lived and held me. And it wrote to you, eventually.

And so, writing this, putting it here, containing this internal fiasco in a language and a shape is my attempt at making a peace offering to all sorts of life’s shenanigans that I have yet to face—an effort to upcycle life just like she does, Lady Pottery. That’s 26 to me. Still a quarter life crisis, just a remix. I remember the times where I prayed so hard—Ramadan 2019, for example, which perhaps was my peak shalihah moment, excuse this shameless self-claim, because I wanted grad school so bad—for the things I do have now. These days I’d call Ibu and we’d both cry on the phone (unsure who’s soothing who?), “Bapak and I prayed for all these things for you—your scholarship and your school—and these granted prayers come with tests for our patience and perseverance…” So there you go.

I once asked my older sister how many more times she cried like a monster after 26, because I was exhausted. She said only a couple more times, because afterwards, the cry is silent. I guess if I asked Lady Pottery how many more times she still has to do recycling, the smashing and the breaking, the answer would be about the same. 

To my most beloved childhood writer, your words break in the waves of never ending storm in my head. They are remedies, as they have always been.

Wishing you nothing, but all those contentments and a life filled with joy.

haha, pernah ga sih elo nemu suatu pencerahan setelah ngulik lamaaaaa banget? atau ketika nyari barang di rumah sendiri, tahunya nempel di area yang dari tadi kita udah bolak-balik seliweran.

rasa kesel ketika yang dicari terasa simpel, mudah, sederhana, bahkan dekat. terus pas inget lagi nanya "kenapa gw butuh waktu selama itu ya?" atau "kenapa gw ga bisa bikin prosesnya lebih cepat?"

kek, "yaampun, kenapa jalannya musti muter-muter dulu? bikin abis energi dan waktu aja."

atau pas denger kisah Siti Hajar yang musti bolak-balik bukit Shafa dan Marwah 7 kali dulu, baru nemu sumber air. bahkan sumber airnya dari pijakan Ismail, yang dari tadi pas Siti Hajar 7 kali bolak-balik, yha di area situ-situ aja. kenapa musti 7 kali dulu, baru itu air muncul?

mencoba mencerna "yha mungkin emang jalannya harus gitu dulu" bukanlah hal yang gampang buat gw. yha kenapa gitu? kenapa harus bersusah-susah dulu?

maka gw harus berdamai dengan sisi gw yang demen nunda suatu aktivitas karena merasa terlalu susah dan semua usaha pada akhirnya akan sia-sia. haha. kenapa ya, ngasih makan ke pikiran negatif dalam diri sendiri itu sangat gampang?

banyak hal yang pas dilakuin akan terasa muter, terkesan mbulet. pengennya sih usaha yang dikeluarin selalu ngasih kesuksesan 100% ya kak. padahal hasil dari usaha itu ada yang namanya pelajaran juga.

terus diingetin lagi, "bukankah manusia itu tugasnya hanya berusaha ya? menikmati setiap menit dalam hidupnya dengan mengusahakan yang terbaik."

jadi mari yha. kita hadapi saja. mbulet, semi ngawang-ngawang, kadang ngablu, mungkin akan bikin ngerasa shitty.

selamat menikmati tiap usaha. termasuk usaha bikin tulisan ini perlu waktu 50-menitan yang gw luangkan.

At the bottom of a very dark swimming pool, divers are getting ready for missions to the Moon. Take a look at this a recent test in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. NASA astronauts are no strangers to extreme environments. We best prepare our astronauts by exposing them to training environments here on Earth that simulate the 1/6th gravity, suit mobility, lighting and lunar terrain they'll expect to see on a mission to the Moon. Practice makes perfect.

The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center is where astronauts train for spacewalks, and soon, moonwalks.

When astronauts go to the Moon’s South Pole through NASA’s Artemis program, the Sun will only be a few degrees over the horizon, creating long, dark shadows. To recreate this environment, divers at the lab turned off the lights, put up black curtains on the pool walls to minimize reflection, and used powerful underwater lamps to simulate the environment astronauts might experience on lunar missions.

These conditions replicate the dark, long shadows astronauts could see and lets them evaluate the different lighting configurations. The sand at the bottom is common pool filter sand with some other specialized combinations in the mix.

This was a test with divers in SCUBA gear to get the lighting conditions right, but soon, NASA plans to conduct tests in this low-light environment using spacesuits.

Neutral buoyancy is the equal tendency of an object to sink or float. Through a combination of weights and flotation devices, an item is made to be neutrally buoyant and it will seem to "hover" under water. In such a state, even a heavy object can be easily manipulated, much as it is in the zero gravity of space, but will still be affected by factors such as water drag.

Lama coba berjalan Nyata tak satu tujuan Janji-janji bersama Menghilang seketika

Lama coba bertahan Benar aku masih cinta Namun bukan begini adanya Biarlah usai

kenapa ya gw suka menyiksa diri dengan nyari-nyari perasaan nyesek gitu? termasuk dengan memasukkan lagu ini dalam mode diputar ulang terus-terusan. biar apa gitu?

tapi hari ini ada hal yang lebih jelas dari sebelumnya. kejelasan itu berarti langkah gw untuk beranjak makin mantap. sebelumnya gw masih melihat harapan meski setitik isi pensil mekanik 0.5. sekarang saatnya beneran menghapus titik itu.

katanya hal yang ga pernah beneran dimulai akan lebih mudah dilupakan. semoga aja gitu.

I have a long way to go

but have no ride to take me there

And it feels like it's gonna rain

and the weight of the day rests on my shoulders

I want to let it go for just a moment

home is far away

dulu gw ngerasain ini tiap menyusuri jalanan ibukota di malam hari. kerlip lampu dari berbagai macam objek. di bawahnya orang berjalan-jalan menuju tujuan masing-masing. suasana kendaraan umum udah lebih sepi daripada jam pulang kantor. raut muka orang-orang jadi lebih mudah diamati karena bukan di jarak yang terlalu jauh atau terlalu dekat.

habis melewati hari yang bagaimana ya mereka ini? lelah pasti. mau pulang. tapi kenapa rasanya masih jauh banget yha. apa besok beneran bakal lebih baik?

sekarang gw udah tinggal di alamat yang tertera di kartu identitas. dan ternyata perasaan ingin pulang, kembali, masih tetep ada.

ya Rabb, bantu hamba menyiapkan kepulangan hamba.

2021-12-16 10:43pm

di hari Sabtu, bahasan soal dosa bunuh diri kembali mencuat karena suatu berita. tiap gw dengar kisah ini, gw ngebayangin apa yang dilalui sebelum orang yang diberitakan meninggal itu meregang nyawa. masalah apa yang dia hadapi sampai dia milih untuk mengakhiri hidupnya.

gw percaya tiap orang dikasih toleransi yang macam-macam sampai muncul suicidal thought. bagi gw beban akademis bukan sesuatu yang bisa memicu, tapi ada juga kabar yang gw dengar meninggal karena "diduga" kewalahan beban akademis. lo gak akan pernah tahu masalah apa yang akhirnya bikin keinginan menghilang di dalam diri lo itu muncul.

apalagi pas denger masalah yang beliau hadapi sebelum ada berita itu, sangat kompleks. beliau mengalami kekerasan seksual, diceritakan pula sempat meminta bantuan tapi dimentahkan, lingkungan yang harusnya bisa ngasih dukungan moral malah ikut menghujat. hal yang sangat ga mudah.

semoga mbak NW sekarang udah ga perlu ngerasain sakit lagi. orang-orang banyak yang nge-judge soal dosa, padahal yang bisa menilai kan Yang Maha. orang-orang tahunya mbak NW meninggal karena mengonsumsi sianida sendiri, sementara tubuh jenazah ga dilakukan autopsi. like, who are you to judge gitu sih menurut gw. kalo kata Adler, itu bukan tugas kita.

yang perlu dilakukan sekarang adalah how we can create the safe space sehingga kisah yang sama gak terulang lagi. gw ngerasa menahan diri untuk ga ngasih stigma itu lebih mudah kalo itu bukan orang terdekat. seolah itu ga akan pernah ngedatengin elo. it will hit harder when you have to face it directly. semacam mengokohkan kembali pernyataan seorang hamba ga akan dibiarkan saja ketika dia mengaku beriman. setiap pengakuan akan diuji oleh-Nya.

maka yang saat ini (dan akan selalu sampai nanti) gw minta adalah pertolongan-Nya. gw ga akan tahu bentuk ujiannya sampai mana, dan bukan hal yang bisa gw kontrol juga. jadi ya Rabb berikanlah hamba pertolongan-Mu setiap saat.