Category: Thoughts

This is not about a book from Agatha Christie.

Unavoidably, the last few days had been spent by witnessing one of historical events happened this year. The passing of the longest monarch who had been around for almost 100 years was not something that we would see again in our lifetime.

Instead of feeling sad about the passing queen, or admiring the long queue of people who were voluntarily standing for hours to pay their respects, what made me relate more to this event was the aftermath. Something that would be experienced by the the closest family, whose life would be greatly affected by such big loss.

I am talking about that empty feeling after the funeral. Certain emotion that hit you after dealing with loud funeral with so many people around then returning to silent home.

Day one after funeral would be the hardest because you’re entering a new different life. A day without your loved one that had always been around. You felt her/his presence everywhere and tears would be flowing easily in any situation that reminds you of her/him.

There were days when you kept questioning yourself whether this was real or not. There were days and nights when you suddenly woke up in the middle of sleeping or just looking around your home trying to accept that she was no longer here.

Even there were times when you were outside, for me it was driving, when suddenly emotional breakdown attacked. You might want to find some available parking spot so you could cry for a while because it was too dangerous to keep going.

We would grieve less and less as the time goes by, but it would never go away. Life goes one with a huge void inside the heart that would remain forever.

A page from Tuesday with Morrie explained it well :

It is the tenth year from the biggest plot twist of my life in 2012, no single Friday passed without thinking about the day I lost my mother.

“Grief is the price we pay for love”

Indeed.

When it comes to writing, the tagline is true. There were so many times that I felt either tense or light-hearted that the only thing I could think of was to pour down everything into a writing, clicked this app, stared at the blank screen for few minutes, yet words didn’t came easily and ended up leaving the page.

My draft is quite full of empty space with bold untitled title on the top of it.

I wish to be able to store as many as possible things happen in daily life so I could revisit the memories later. The daily conversations I had with little girl, her remarks on certain situations, her response to my questions, the observation during my morning walk, things that I see along the way, the struggle to keep all the routines daily and how I try to keep reassuring and reasoning with the beast inside the head that this is what I have to do for now.

What might help is having a specific time to do it. When it comes to reading, it feels easier to make some time and it has been automatically done during waiting or just anything. I read daily and it feels easy.

Maybe because reading is more about consuming. That is undeniably easier than writing which is an act of producing something from scratch.

Maybe the first thing that needs to be done is find the why. The reason why this is important. Set a clear intention to do this. Maybe one of the reasons I still don’t do it because no clear whys about this. No wonder the hadits said, “every action is judged based on its intention”.

Then, the next most important principle in forming any habits is to Make It Easy. Because who wants to do hard thing if it’s not compulsory? Why should we make life harder by doing something uncomfortable when there’s no obligation to do it and no consequences for leaving it behind?

Surely, talking is cheap. Doing is another thing.

Hopefully soon after this, I could do more of the walk than just the talk.

Chant the mantra: “More is better”.

School days have been rolling for few weeks and it gives me some space in between.

I love the silence during school hours. Sessions with Heather, doing the remaining chores, talking to all the noise inside the head, tell them to slow down and shut up a little bit.

Safely passed June and July doesn’t make this new month feels easier. As if something is always lurking behind the wall. Couldn’t help keeping the seatbelt on and continuously being alert just in case turbulences coming without any warnings, which happened quite often recently.

Funny how being relax now feels more insecure than keep exercising the overthinking talent. Telling “whatever will be, will be” to the noise inside only helps as long as more plans are secured.

I remembered one of those days. The period where I wondered how tranquil the days had been until it felt quite boring. Now, the wheels are rolling, wishes were granted.

There were times when I thought how hard these days have been, but the thought of getting the comfortable days back yet going through the same situation with the same people didn’t appealing at all.

I remembered how many chances had been given yet no improvement shown. For someone who don’t easily let go of something, who always tries any possible ways to make it work because it’s important for me, I don’t look back once I decide to let go.

As if I am babbling about getting back with ex-boyfriend (there’s none, in fact).

I wish I could find the urge to write more often since it helps so much. Too many untitled posts in the draft where I had so much to pour yet no words came easily to be typed. Stopping at few first sentences becomes a habit.

But, at least, one is released now and it feels good!

Done with the ABRSM grade 2 exam which result was quite a ‘betrayal’ to all those hard works, months, weeks, and hours spent in practicing all the pieces made me decide to have a break from anything related to the exam.

I refused proceeding to the next grade. I wanted her to refine her basic techniques more and go easy with practice sessions after months of high tension ones yet without satisfying result.

Asked the teacher to have a break and learn any other pieces which were more pleasant and enjoyable to learn.

But, up to 3 months, instead of progress (that I expect), we turned out to be slacking more. The pieces given from the teacher were far from appealing, which is understandable since Russian method is not famous for being interesting.

‘Interesting’ : famous little pieces from Bach, Beethoven or Mozart which are more familiar to the ears, easier pattern to read, and looks cool to be released on my social media feed.

There’s this guilty feeling inside when I know for sure I’ve been taking the easy way and let her being too ‘lazy’ on her daily practice.

Until I re-read another old book of Amy Chua. Once read this before piano becomes the part of our daily life and I thought this woman was crazy and there’s no way I wanted to be like her.

But, reading it now, with different circumstances and many major changes in daily life since the beginning of the pandemic, I couldn’t help thinking how much truths exist in many lines that she wrote.

Although we’re nothing close in every aspects compared to Chua and her daughters, but many things were so related and it all made sense.

A month ago, her dad bought the new grade 3 syllabus and I only took a glance at it then put it on the drawer right away without a slight of interest.

Out of the blue, one afternoon when I was done with the chapter “how we make it to Carnegie Hall”, something triggered me.

I took the book out of drawer, trying almost all the pieces inside and ended up practicing for more than an hour, which is much more rare than having rainbow in Jakarta’s sky.

Decided all the pieces we would practice for the exam while drilling some parts of the song.

Suddenly, I feel ready for ABSRSM exam season 3.

Starting is one thing. But, maintaining the spirit, keeping the flame burning, those were totally in a different league.

Resuming exam prep means we would also resume those high tension mornings full of arguing, high-pitch voices, and so many more in our daily life.

It’s surely not pleasant, but, it means we’re working towards something. It’s obviously better than staying at the lazy zone.

Bismillah. Sloth out, Tiger in.

There were some life periods when I look them back somewhere from the future, I was quite certain that at that time, I was on the level of ‘urgently-need’ therapist.

But, I am not good at talking. The thought of heart-to-heart talk is not appealing and doable. Also, I am not sure if it could help making me feel better.

These days might be one of those periods.

I realized during the turbulence, I don’t need escaping to any places, doing any irregular things like shopping, binge watching, or non-stop eating. Ones that have helped me going through many ups and downs are actually things that I do regularly.

The silence before fajr where most important conversations between me and Him happen, the morning routine and daily exercise, and last but not least, all the writings kept in this platfrom.

I also post quite a lot in a (completely) private social media and no time I visited all those long writings more often than when I am dealing with stormy weather in life.

All those things turned out to be my personal therapists that helped me more than I could think of.

The past two days, the stat had been spiking since someone clicked almost every past writing (thank you so much for that) and it showed in my daily stats. It made me revisiting all those writings too and how soothing it was while reading them.

There were details that I didn’t even remember but actually happened. They were stored safely on those lines. In spite of typos, grammar mistakes everywhere, but it was more than enough to make me say, “well, what’s so bad about current circumstances?” (Although in reality, it’s so headache and heartbreaking).

I entered this year with cautious feeling, more than the previous two years, knowing this is a ten-year marker from the incredible 2012. Up to the seventh month, it might be not as bumpy as ten years ago, but to say it’s been walk in the park, certainly not.

If there were an option where we could choose one superpower to have, I would have chosen a ‘que sera sera’ mentality to deal with any kind of hurdles, to be traded with this anxiety and overthinking ability.

A big sigh was released right after typing the last paragraph.

Well, till then.