I am close to never being envious of someone. But, there are few kind that could give me such feeling. One of them is those who could write beautifully.
The level of envy could make me press a new post button at this hour in the dark after reading that new well-written post.
Her whole blog is amazing. I love how she could elaborate and describe anything with unusual choices of words, putting them together into a long enjoyable writing which is impossible for the reader to skip any single lines.
Her new release once felt so familiar.
The period of early years of marriage until this trip happened was the longest I had been without any single trips. The last greatest trip took place right before the wedding and it became a closure of series of my (and our) traveling days in my (our) 20s.
That four years between 2012-2016 were the period of mundane daily life with full of hardworks. We literally started from zero where both were jobless. One just finished the study while another just enrolled residency.
We got close to zero saving since we used most of our hard-earned money for the certain parts of the wedding, apart from the amount that our parents paid for us.
I didn’t know how the idea came from but, I made an excel file of the list of wedding money we received, reported to our parents and we gave 50% of the total amount to our parents, brothers and sisters, and many relatives, even my long-served ART at home that had helped us to do the wedding.
For those whom we couldn’t give the money, we took them to our favorite seafood restaurant for lunch.
The rest 50%, we saved 80% of it to some instruments that couldn’t be easily accessible and used the last 20% for surviving the first few months until I got a regular job.
We used half of the 80% to pay the first rent for our small business five years ago, the remaining amount is still safely kept until now.
Things were hard on the first year. Losing my mum just two weeks before the wedding made me not only a newlywed but also a new caretaker who took over all my mother’s duties at home, including my father.
When the little girl came on the the second year, it was even harder. There were too many highly stressful days due to exhaustion taking care of so many things and people at home, while being 80% of single parent due to high demand of residency and necessities.
There were days after the emotionally draining feeding battle done three times a day, the rushing from and to workplace and home to make it one time, and the exhaustion after work since instead of proper break, I needed to get the dinner ready for everyone. There were times when I talked to myself, “there should be more life than this”.
It was getting worse when during those years the two brothers got a chance to pursue their higher education abroad. I was happy for them, but, releasing a big sigh was unavoidable too. At that time, I felt there would be no exit and I was gonna stuck there forever.
One of my readings said, “the most interesting about life is where you are is never permanent, be it the high or the low” and it is true.
When Paris finally happened, it felt like I was liberated from something and ‘suddenly’ and ‘strangely’, a new period of life happened.
Seven days spent there became a milestone of our life together and it opened many doors to other places that I could never think of going before. Seven days in Paris set a new tone for traveling, at least for me.
Instead of having post-holiday blues in almost all my 20s trips, where I could barely functioned properly for few days after, I felt so happy to be back home and even worked harder, knowing and thinking, “ah, so that was what all this hard-earned money could do”.
Unpacked all the luggages right away when we arrived at home (literally right away), no matter what time it is, started here. It gave me peace and proper closure that one thing is done and time to resume life again.
Life suddenly became so exciting since I had another mission to do : did some research on affordable tickets to certain places that seemed a good idea for our next trip.
Six months after Paris, London happened. When I thought Paris was crazy, London was even more insane. With all the twists, I wondered how I could endure all those life dramas for a mere 7-days trip.
Life continued giving us more traveling days on the following year. That 2018 marked the most traveling year in our life together. From Bali, Tokyo, Tanah Bumbu and Banjarmasin, Jogja, Surabaya (one of the most pleasant yet not recorded), Solo, and Kuala Lumpur, all happened within short time until I thought, “How could life be this crazy?”.
Turned out the craziness didn’t stop there. Entered the year of 2019 sailed around in Labuan Bajo for five days, then The last tetralogy trip in May, short Eid trip to Solo and finally the big move to London.
Those London days were also full of trips to other cities. When the pandemic began, we just finished having one of the most amazing nature trips we had. Even the capricious 2020 gave us chances to do more travelings to England’s best villages in a quiet and peaceful mode.
Until we returned back home.
Life was slowly heading back to its low-mode. The lockdown, the anxiety of sending the doctor to daily covid battle, the frustration of not being able to go anywhere, The languishing period that felt so suffocating, paralysed by the feeling of missing those London life.
Thankfully, it didn’t stay for long. Daily routines and daily exercise helped a lot. I found new joy in getting on public transportations visiting outdoor parks and playground around the town. Started resuming light travel nearby, did something that we have never done like Glamping and short trip with my father to Bogor.
It seemed nothing compared to what we had before, but they were exciting enough to give the similar gratitude inside.
Up until now, no single proper travel made. But, funnily and strangely, I feel somewhat more secured this way. We have been having regular staycation for two to three days and it felt more than enough.
The daily piano practise becomes something that I am uncomfortable missing for too long. We could do all the daily routines everywhere but not the piano.
I don’t know why for the past one year the FOMO feeling for the piano practise has been stronger than one for traveling.
I wondered once, was it because we had had enough up until 2020? Or am I just getting older and choose having less voluntarily adrenaline rush instead?
It seems so funny that during those years where money and time was pretty limited we had such high spirit and energy, going from one place to another. While now, when we could afford such thing without too much worry financially, we prefer doing, ‘buying’, and saving for something else for the future. I haven’t got that desire to checked the ticket price to anywhere far. But still happy to do that for some light domestic travels.
It’s not that I have no more places I wish to visit, but for now, there are some other things that make me feel ‘happier’ than getting lost in unfamiliar place for more than three days.
It is indeed the sign of getting older.
We checked one of our financial goals last May. Although it is still far away, but one big important step made.
We also currently deal with another huge goals which as usual, full of twists here and there. Our life motto together has been, “it is fishy when it seems too easy”.
Dancing between the high and low is the only thing we could do in this school of life.
Lastly, for making me write such long post within short time is the proof how inspiring the blog I mentioned above.
A Penny for My Pensieve 