There are times when I just want to rant about things without thinking too much.
Like how impossible sometimes this little girl behave until I wonder did I miss something important along the way? or is it just me being more impatient? Or is it just me who wants everything to be under control everytime? So, who’s being impossible here?
There are times when I wonder how could this be so hard? I know it won’t be easy, but dealing with a pre teen who already could talk back to you for every little thing you ask her to do, who already has her own opinion about daily things and refuse to follow what others want. Or is it just me who’s being too slow and easily exhausted about catching up with her quick growth?
I don’t know. Or I just don’t want everything to change quickly and stay forever in ‘easy’ zone😭😭😭.
Jump to another rant.
I feel like having more (in this case : money) doesn’t make things necessarily easier. It makes life easier at certain point, but, it’s absolutely much harder when it comes to control. We once defined one specific number which we considered as ‘sufficient’ many years ago. Thought if we got that number monthly, we were good.
Fast forward few years, we have passed way above that number, yet, many times I feel perplexed looking at the expense and thinking how come our mere expense now equals the number we set few years ago?
Although I think we’re doing well on saving, helping, and investing, but looking at our consumption expense, there are times where I feel guilty and feel like need doing more justifications to make it feel right. To be secured that those were for a greater good, that we deserve it.
From my own view, life style is not something that is hard to adjust when you have more. We still use my old car for the last 10 years, we still go around by bus or angkot to many places, the doctor is still using taxi or ojek (rarely) to go to work, we divide house chores among us, no maid, no driver, we use our old clothes, till when I looked at some pictures, same clothes appeared too often😂.
Yet, in the other side, things have been drastically changed. The hardships are more to resist the temptations for better life qualities.
We spend more for higher, healthier, and better qualities for many products or services we use. We spend more to live in better area which is closer to work and school also dealing with less traffic jam. We could dine out , in any kind of places, anytime we want to do it without thinking too hard.
We couldn’t help using real italian or french cheese in making pasta, best quality meat for making steak, the oil we use daily, weekly spending for fruits now equals to a bi-weekly expense for the whole groceries in the past, replacing rice with greens for breakfast made me understand someone who said rice was cheap. Education expenses are on the rise too. But won’t go into details about that.
I had been in certain periods where money was an issue, before and after marriage, and those were hard. The saying money can’t buy happiness is only true once you have the money.
From Naval’s page
Then, once you’re blessed with more, it comes with certain price too. For me, it means you have to deal a lot with what is inside. Be it your ego or self control. When you have less, there’s nothing much to think about, simple because it’s not there. Dealing with more means it requires more meticulous planning, more disciplined and self control. Thinking is not an easy job to do.
A slap on the face
Spiderman uncle was right when he said that with great power comes great responsibility.
Well, enough ranting for now. Still have few more to go, but lets save them for another day.
We had super low key Sunday on fully rest mode to be well-prepared for an important Monday, which was exam recording.
That was the plan. The first part checked, but not the second phrase.
Canceled one last afternoon rehearsal for another plan.
At this time, the rehearsal is more about setting the mood and strengthening the mental issue. When to rehearse matters. Felt slightly uneasy skipping it, but found no other ‘right’ time for that.
Cancelling rehearsal was one thing, unsually late bed time hour was another.
Movie night was on the plan. It started quite late wasn’t. Little girl insisted to do the movie in one sitting despite knowing she would have an early compulsory Monday morning class. Refused to cancel an essential thing for something optional. Chose to finish the movie came with the consequences.
In the middle of the movie, a text came to notify canceled recording session due to school closure.
Delaying the exam for few days is not actually a good thing for peace of mind, but there’s nothing we could do.
This morning, another text came. Early morning class postponed because the teacher was unwell.
Starting Monday without this class was actually not preferable, but we didn’t have power to keep it as planned.
Relaxed Sunday was on the plan.
Low key Monday wasn’t.
Once again, the invisible hand played its part.
Taking care (or taking over) little things beyond our control.
When plans are going south, keep calm and try hard to fix the mood.
Adding some pages from my early morning reading which totally resonated with what happened.
I spent a lot of time typing and deleting the first sentence. Finding the words to say turned out wasn’t an easy thing to do.
Maybe just like what people with DLD do.
In spite of sleeping quite late (based on my regular schedule), I woke up early and felt like yesterday was a dream that I wanted to make sure it was real.
It started with a forwarded whatsapp text from her dad followed by the school manager herself last week. It was an offer for the little girl to do something related to her major weakness that makes her doing weekly therapy until now.
I wasn’t sure at first. It was a good chance of course, but, I didn’t want her being exposed too early. But, since the school was quite sure about that, and she would did it with her teacher which the relationship has been really great, so I allowed that. More than being uncertain, I was also curious.
Yesterday felt like having a second episode of what I felt in this post.
I watched her doing a 30 minutes live talk in the school social media platform with the teacher.
She was being briefed on Tueday, a light one. I made her some pointers on the paper. The rest, she just went with the flow.
One of the most admired qualities that she has is the confidence. We have discussed about her condition. Althought I am not sure she fully understand about that or not for now, but, for someone with language disorder, speaking difficulties, she talked ‘too well’. Her confidence is much bigger than her constraints.
She also reads a lot and that is a tremendous help. She has a lot of interests that makes her doing an intense reading on the particular topic. Thanks to this app, her interests are well entertained.
Back to yesterday.
Watched her talking excitedly, I couldn’t help looking back once again. Unlike the Dyspraxia that had just been discovered recently, language problems has been her constant problem since she was baby.
Consulted a child development pediatrician since she was 22 month old.
Enrolled therapies at 3 years old with speech delay diagnosis.
Did exhausting therapies few times a week, with all the drama.
Diagnosed with DLD at 5 during her time in Alfred Salter.
Doing a live talk at 7.
Yesterday felt like a monumental moment despite anything that has been written on the paper.
It also has been a year since she has been consistently and confidently giving ‘news anchor/reporter’ answer to “what do you want to be” question. Said that she would report any news from any places. Among many jobs out there that could be done with less talking, she chooses one with the most talking.
Writing this, I am still overwhelmed and too amazed for witnessing few among many of life and its funny paradoxes.
Yesterday was not an usual outdoor time with scooter, bus or train.
It’s something that has been on the plan since last year yet to make it happen takes more courage than I think. It’s something that she has been longing for quite a while.
I had planned previously to go to one of the parks with usual mode then changed it suddenly on the last minute after having beautiful morning show up above in the sky.
Never underestimate the influence of the nature to your overall mood.
More, her dad was also here. So, more reasons to do this. I had this place in mind before. It is only 15 minutes driving and it has a huge and wide parking lot, then outdoor picnic space to rest after that. Truly a perfect place for the thing we wanted to do.
Done doing her set of morning menu, we drove to this place. It was a rare sunny Sunday, so even the weather conspired us to make this thing happened.
There was no one there since it was as early as 8 am. We enjoyed all the space for ourselves.
At first, I talked to myself to lower my expectation, to be patient, because it wasn’t something that one could do in an instant. More, with her pre-existing condition. So, ‘lower your expectation, mommy’ had been continously playing inside my head.
It was hard at first, as expected. But, slowly, it was getting better. Then, not for long, it happened. Right before my eyes.
She rode two wheels bicycle on her own.
She really did it!
That was it? What’s so grand about being able to ride on two wheels bicycle?
For some people, this is just an ordinary milestone, but not for her, or us. Other than having diagnosed with DLD during our time in London, she is also known to have mild DCD or dyspraxia.
Dyspraxia is a childhood developmental disorder marked by clumsiness in otherwise healthy children. Few of its symptoms are having difficulties in certain motoric movement like balance and coordination.
She has experienced countless time falling while riding scooter, while walking, couldn’t ride a swing properly, couldn’t throw and catch ball, and many more.
From 100 ideas to help children with DCD and Dyspraxia.She once even fell while riding a tricycle!She fell into this yucky pond during walking normally on the way to visit child development pediatrician consultant.
There were times when it felt so frustrating. Having a language disorder is a huge setback already. Having another felt too much.
If there’s a trait that might look unfavorable in certain circumstances, but it works well while dealing with this situation.
I am too stubborn to just accept whatever shit life throws.
After having adequate crying, whinning, and countless why, no time to waste anymore. Something should be done.
For the past two years, instead of going to therapy for this, we enrolled her to a private gym class where she could train all the things she couldn’t do yet.
Another thing that helps a lot other than being stubborn, she might have those disorders, but, on the other side, she has this determination, persistent, and perseverance. She always tries her best in everything she does.
Another thing that we got on the good side: we mostly destined to meet the kind and right people. Teachers, therapists that truly helped us and her genuinely (other than the fact we paid them, of course).
There were days when I felt so depressed because days went by without significant progress. But, it wasn’t enough to make us stop.
We kept coming every week. When the gym closed down during delta wave last year, we asked if the coach would do it in our residence outdoor space and she said yes. So, the training continued, in spite of the situation out there.
Yesterday, it was all paid off.
I am fully realized in spite of having such conditions above, we have many advantages and privileges that maybe some other special needs parents and child don’t.
But, if a little note is allowed, maybe here : above paper diagnosis doesn’t define who your child is. There’s so much life after that. There are many other doors open for them, as long as we don’t stop looking. Accept what has been destined for you, but don’t accept it as an end result. We need diagnosis to understand the child, not to prevent them to do things they’re capable of.
She wrote this last year.Please, don’t.
Above all the efforts you have done, put your trust. To the One who creates her and to your child herself.
It’s been a year since we make going around by public transport and little girl’s pink scooter as a routine.
It is not a new thing for me. Been going everywhere around this town by public transport since I was little. One year lived without my family for a year during junior high school escalated my public transportation knowledge and experience quickly. For many years, I had been a person whom my friends asked whenever they need to go somewhere by bus or kopaja.
But, that is not the case with this little girl. Thus, a little effort should be done.
Once in a while, this little girl (and of course, her mother) should go out of her (our) bubble. Going by public transportation, waiting for the bus under the sun, riding on angkot with other people, dealing with this unfriendly-for-pedestrian city on her scooter.
Dealing with bumpy pavements, endless construction works, people’s staring, endless swearing to the motorcycle driver who was leisurely using the pedestrian walk, being grumpy over the luxurious car who wouldn’t spare few minutes to stop for a while to allow us crossing the street .
Any places where the system is not well-designed and doesn’t work well, people will always argue between what’s right and what’s good.
In this city, you couldn’t help swearing a lot on the road, both during driving and walking. Honestly, we’re really getting used to it.
Is that all bad?
Here’s the silver lining.
In spite of all those things above, this city has one big forgivable trait.
If there’s one thing which could make up all those despcable items above, here it is : good to great food with reasonable price, available widely and EASILY in this city.
You name it, he has it. (I choose pronoun he for this city).
Our weekly scooter, bus or train riding session mostly decided based on which park and ice cream shop we want to visit.
If there’s none, move to boulangerie, ramen shop, pasta place, fancy warteg, or just any new eating places we want to try.
There’s a twitter accound called @darihaltekehalte which will show you so many hidden gems you can find in this city by public transportations. That is genius.
Somehow, it makes sense to me why it’s hard for our people to move for good to other countries.
Food is one of the basics thing needed to survive, the tummy is one that should be fulfilled first before doing anything else, and it is also the simplest thing that can make us happy.
Here, we could get that very basic thing effortlessly.
You can be happy and stuffed by paying as little as Rp 20.000 for a main course, if you know where to go.
You can have authentic other countries food in certain places, and it caters all categories of consumers, in terms of the ability and their willingness to pay.
During London days, we were the middle class who could afford eating out regularly without worrying about the expense as long as it was reasonable, but dealing with day to day menu was quite headaches.
Here, we are the middle class who can afford eating out regularly without worrying about the expense, even for some occasional higher-than-usual dining, yet dealing with day to day menu only takes a little bit of careful planning on menu and budget.
Among many things that I am being grumpy, particularly about living in this city, I have to say he has this one huge quality that is quite hard to let go.
Living in this city might be messy, but it’s easy.
There’s one page from Elizabeth Pisani book Indonesia who described this a perfect analogy :
We could replace country with city.
(This is me trying to love what I have while thinking of something I love but I can’t have, in the meantime).
New month with old cycle once again. Of course, it’s far from surprising but yeah, it’s still tiring.
I don’t have many things to say about the whatever name it is called, but I do have a lot to say about how the people up there deal with this situation once again.
I really wish they learn a lot from what happened last year, how devastating it was, but somehow, I don’t think this goldfish memory people can turn into herds of elephant. Remembering how ignorant they had beed during the first year of pandemic, I am so sceptical they could do better this time.
Two weeks after happily enjoyed offline school, it was closed once again. As I have written before, the children are the ultimate pandemic hidden victim in this country. It is almost certain, judging from current situation, it won’t be opened till the end of academic year, I guess. Hopefully not.
Heading to the third year, staying safe and sane is not as hard as years before. What I still find hard is feeling secured.
I don’t miss traveling (that much). What I miss is feeling secured of doing daily things. Sending the doctor to work without worrying too much, letting the little girl join a group class without anxiety, going places here and there around the town without thinking too long.
I don’t miss large gathering like wedding. What I miss is being able to meet whom I want to meet without overthinking about the risk.
I am fully aware about countless privileges we have during these years. Being able to throw some rants here shows how much privileged we are.
Still, spare me some space for a cup of whine.
Hope everyone here and out there stay safe, stay healthy, and stay vigilant to face whatever things we have to deal with, sooner or later.
Having internal conversation on something for some periods until it transforms into a writing these days. The more I read, the merrier those talkings inside the head.
This topic has been on my head for quite long time. The last time I wrote on similar topic was almost three years ago in this post. Many things happened within these years. Many books read, more meetings with different kind of people, and it gives more insights and different perspectives.
When the doctor once said that I am an avid believer of French Parenting, only a little part of that is true. It is also totally understandable when I was raised french way too. Although I am abosulutely in for their three main items which are eat, sleep, and say bonjour, but, for certain parts, I think French mothers might deny me to be a part of their group if they see how I take lunch lightly or knowing that I breastfed my baby for more than 2 years.
When some close family considered me as a strict Tiger Mom who filled her child’s day with schedule, the real chinese or east asian tigress will laugh out loud. The schedule part might be yes, but what kind of tiger mom allow her child to play game everyday, allow sleepover, not pushing the child doing hours of drilling, yet allow so many hours for leisure reading about anything, but not sitting and studying doing worksheets. A big grumpy cat might be yes, but tiger? I can see they are smirking on that idea. No tiger mom is this ‘laid back’.
When I sometimes considered myself (or maybe dying to be part of) as a Scandinavian mom. But, the real ones would be too shocked if they see how different I interpret the word ‘relax’, how little hours I assign for outdoor, and how packed the schedule the little girl has daily or how early we start our day. They will ask me to omit everything I have done and replaced them with some real leisure and pleasure for children.
I can go on comparing few more but let’s stop here.
One thing that came to my thinking, the more books I read, more examples I see, I found that it’s totally hard to define an Indonesian parenting way. Those countries that has country parenting label have things that are clearly defined by the government, applied to everyone without exception, and persevered across generations.
Here, there’s no clear goal, let alone guidelines, no strong foundation, and what define us mostly in general, in my opinion is not a good character. We’re not famous for our strong work ethic, not for honesty, not for intelligence, not for the good habits like reading, not for good education and health service, at least not famous for important items needed to build a well-rounded adult.
Because there’s no clear goal, that’s why there’s no support system built. No proper pedestrian walk in a whole city to safely walk (even an area with pedestrian walk taken over by street food seller or motorcycle), public parks are getting better, but still not enough, free libraries are rare, inequalities in school services (and it’s crazy), there’s almost no single important thing that we could rely on. The absence of the country means a lot. But, since we (currently) have no choice but to live in an this absolute non-kids friendly city and country, we can’t do much about that.
I remembered when I went Hajj, one of the official said how different Malaysian and Indonesian pilgrims were. Different in terms of manner.
It was packed during hajj session, so finding a spot for salah quite tricky because I wanted to have a Ka’bah view. But, since it was only a petite me, it was actually easy to squeeze in. It was easy to recognize Indonesian pilgrims from their mukena and Indonesian also brought their huge praying mat, so I asked some space to share from them.
Few times did this, can you guess what happened? Almost none did. Instead of giving a little bit space for me, they spreaded their legs instead. At first, I was a bit flustered. But, after several times of rejections, I was getting used to it and moved on.
Then who were the one who called me, even from a far and asked me to join? The Malaysian pilgrims.
“Come here, there’s a lot of space here!”
(Insert flat smile)
It was more clearly shown also during Mina. Malaysian (and Singaporean) tents were placed on the main road, closed to the jumroh, and their tents were so cozy and comfy, while Indonesian tents (pilgrims who went with government service, it would be totally different with one who went with privat service, again, see the inequality?) were located on the top of the hill, small tents, extremely hot, and being in one area with other third world countries-whose cleanliness manner was, should I say scary?
You’ll surely see huge difference in manner between children (citizen) who were being taken care well by their parents (government) with those ones who didn’t receive the same level of care or close to being neglected.
You’ll only be able to share, be it love, money or everything, when you’re already filled with it first. Those who spreaded their legs, refused to share a bit of space,even inside the holy mosque, maybe that was what happened to them too. Sharing is not something they would do because maybe, they don’t feel (have) enough for themselves.
It also reminded me of when I visited one of the food bazaar event in London. I came with high expectation that I would finally meet bunch of people where I could have a chat in my language, but, not until an hour, I decided to go home.
The ambiance was so cold. Most of the food seller gave cold response when I asked about the food (of course in Bahasa), but, but, when a foreigner came to their stall, oh la la, so much warmth felt in the air.
No wonder we’re famous as friendly people by the foreigner.
“Things that valued in one place will grow” from Geography of Genius.
Above is one of the pages from my current reading. It also applies here. What we value mostly here are material or something tangible. How much money one makes, how many cars or things you own, how big one house is, how much followers in social media, what position one is at work, and many more. Everything that is easily measured and judged by the paper.
We also rarely apply delay gratification here. Everyone wants to have or achieve everything in an instant. No wonder, no matter how often it happened in the past, the victim of fraud would always be available in this country.
In book stores, there are books for how to get rich quickly in many different perspectives, but none how to raise an honest kid, how to live right and enough.
Getting rich in an instant seems becoming the ultimate goal. No matter the way you take to get there. No matter how many rules you break to make it happen. As long as you end up with more money.
Why? Because that’s how you’re being valued here.
So, is it wrong to be rich? Bien sur que non. Even in Islam, it’s strongly recommended so you can contribute better. But, many times here, being rich means you have the permit to be asshole and playing power to abuse those who are less fortunate.
Fiuh. Another post that becomes another rant about being a frustrated parent in this country.
Back to parenting tribe.
When we look at certain local parenting tribe, I’ll surely stand with the chinese and bataknese. In 5 years, we have been working with two bataknese young adults, and I love working with them. Hard working, diligent, fast learner, resilience when dealing with complaints, problem solving-oriented (the one that I wrote here is about one of them), no quitting for cheap reason, and they say what they mean, no beating around the bush. Compared to those javanese ones, I prefer having non-javanese. Nothing about being racist here. Just point out what I have dealt in real life.
Reading these books doesn’t mean finding which one you belong to but more of knowing, or even better, applying, if there’s some practices from those parenting types could also work for you and suits your personality and family. Of course, it should be aligned with your goals.
From French, I took the sleep and eat properly part. From the tigers, I am totally in for the discipline part, no matter how many considered it is so tough. We can see how accomplished those tigress kids are academically. From Scandinavians, I took the play part, assigning outdoor hours, and taking care more of little important things.
What have been done are surely still far from ideal, yet all we could do is just trying our best in hoping the little girl could become the part of world citizen tribe, in spite of growing up in a non-ideal place for children.
Be as discplined as the chinese.
Eat well like french.
Living life to the fullest, simple and resilience like Scandinavian.
When last week was packed and hectic, this week the tension has been toned down a little bit. More leisure in zoom school schedule means we could have more pleasure in home school one.
This week has been quite pleasant so far. Got boosted at home by the doctor, less zoom meetings from school and the little girl had done her final theory exam for this first year. So, yesterday, when she only got one zoom school in the morning, we went around to visit some places on my list.
Whenever I see some empty schedule from the school on the day where afternoon class schedule allows, my brain is racing faster. It would be bad to waste such precious chance to just stay at home.
So, whenever that empty schedule is available, I spend quite some time to check on google maps to see which option is available for our field trip. Mostly, I will take her on bus or train riding with a little bit of walking.
Planning itineraries with public transportation has been my favorite thing to do since long. Even better, since I have more free time on my hand. Since the little girl was little, we had visited few spots in Jakarta, by car, like TIM, or small library around the area. During London days, I have been excitedly planning things to do on weekend, where to eat, what to visit, with which bus or train to take. Playground and park always become main idea and the rest will follow.
It’s been a year since we visit many outdoor playground around this town with public transportation, like here for example. Some of them are free, some a paid one.
For this week, I had an idea on my head days before yesterday. Planned to merely visiting a gelato shop nearby with only 15 minutes bus riding from home and short walking.
(Much) better ideas always come on the last minute. I found that it was possible to add another more interesting itinerary together with gelato shop.
Instead of heading to gelato shop from the start, we were heading to National Library first. When I think about going by car, it feels so far, more with odd-even number policy. But, when I checked the way there by bus, it only took 40 minutes without too much bus changing hassles, more, very agreeable transport fee.
So, off we went to National Library first.
We arrived around 10 am. If previously children can enter any buildings without question as long as accompanied by vaccinated adults, yesterday, I was asked to be presented the little girl’s vaccination proof. Luckily, she had done her first jab, but unfortunately her vaccination certificate is together with her dad apps not mine.
But, the officer was quite helpful on that. I showed her the screencap of her vaccine certificate and then we were allowed to enter.
The library has 24 floors. Since our time is limited, yesterday we only focused on the 7th floor which is children section. They have quite wide range of collections. It was quite empty and pretty cozy.
The little girl found book series that kept her sitting and reading for more than an hour, and that made me so happy. I looked around to almost every shelf. I found a box of Enid Blyton books that I once had during childhood.
What needs to be improved from the library is, the signage for books category. It’s not that easily read thus, the browsing experience is a little bit less comfortable, for me.
Done with children’s floor, we went up to 24th floor, the executive lounge where you could see the view of Jakarta from above. They have outdoor balcony too. The wind was quite strong yesterday.
But, luckily, after days of grey sky, yesterday we got pretty clear blue one. So, the view was even better. Pictures below will explain it better.
Overall, the library is one of the free-worth-to-visit spots in Jakarta. I saw lot of college students there, either just hanged out or did their homework.
There are only two problems. First, the elevator. It took long queues to go up and down waiting for the elevator. They have three which stop in every floor, and they are almost always full. So, yesterday, instead of going up directly to the 24th floor, we went down first, as long as we got on the lift.
The other problem is quite personal.
If there’s one thing that is similar in museums or library runs by government that I have visited here,they put so many unnecessary people pictures everywhere (mostly those faces with power). As if we couldn’t get them enough around the street all over the city, we still have to see those faces too inside a building. Such a nuisance.
Instead of those pictures everywhere, what we need more is this kind of libraries around the town and make it more accessible for everyone.
The view of the lady from 24th floor
Done with library, we proceeded to the main idea for the little girl. Found this secluded gelato shop when I was waiting for her time at the daycare. Planned to take her here during weekdays because they’re closed on weekend.
From the library, we only had to take one bus ride straight to the gelato shop, so it was so convenient.
Their gelatos are pretty good. I chose dates with almond and the little girl went with oreo cream. I bought five more cups home for the doctor and had tried all of them, they were equally good.
Nice places, nice riding, delicious gelato while the weather was nice, truly my kind of outdoor time and field trip!
Wonder if there’s any groups of people who feels this high level of anxiety of having old normal school life back in our life.
I know I have been screaming pretty loudly about how school closure costs a lot to many aspects of the children’s life, now when it finally opens again, it turns out has its own cost too.
Peaceful morning replaced by morning rush, long drive, and dealing with traffic jam.
The anxiety about sending back the little girl to school is more of how she would deal with her peers than the healthy and safety reason. Of course, they matter. But, with every precautions that have been taken, guess we could just trust the school and ask for Allah protection about the decision.
But then, she has to do what she has to do. I just hope she will meet the kind ones that would accept and be happy playing with her.
When I thought leaving the little girl at school is the most anxious thing to do. It turned out, having plenty of free time causes even more anxieties!
Freedom and free time without proper plan is more frightening than having tight schedule. That’s why I mostly plan my day 7 days a week. Not knowing what to do next always gives certain helplessness feeling inside.
Staying at home suits me most. But, there are times when I miss being a bit ‘busier’ to certain degree. The problem is I have plenty of requirements what kind of busy I want to sign up.
One of the reasons why I quitted full time job 12 years ago was because I started realizing time is the commodity that you couldn’t replace (have a draft about this but still can’t continue after weeks).
That was the first time I got the magic words inside my head “there should be more life than this”. This referred to spending entire Monday to Friday working and went home exhausted and had no energy to do other thing. What made me survive was because I had dreams to achieve. Thus, I worked also on Saturday and Sunday. I believe, the very first thing you should possess to achieve any dreams is not intangible thing like spirit or grit, but money. Then, no other way than working 7 days a week.
But, the situation is totally different now. I am more than lucky to be able to have a choice to stay at home with the little girl without worrying about food, rent, or even any other expenses, for now.
There are times when it was so hard till I promised my self I had no other space for anything else. But, there were also times when I had handful of free time till I thought I should be more useful than this.
When I seem to have clear schedule to the smallest detail for the little girl, I struggle a lot to have one for me.
During easy days, when the little girl stuff is done, I fell into a trap of doing mindless scrolling here and there. Pretty lucky there is a tiny part inside the head that rings the alarm and told myself to get my butt out of the couch and start functioning. My day begins at the end of a tidy home and clear sink. At the beginning of this year, I even set a daily reminder how much time I should spend daily watching people’s life in social media.
The biggest enemy is indeed inside yourself.
To say I am totally without any works to do is indeed not true. But, those sometimes feel inadequate to keep me ‘busy’. The thing is the free time is not something that consistently available. Sometimes I have it, many times I don’t. So, it is quite tricky to have another responsibility that won’t cause trouble with the ones that I have signed up before. Although fitting in to those requirements is quite impossible, I still keep trying to find one, still without deadline.
This period reminded me of one period that I had been through. The period before Paris happened. The period of too hopeless to be hopeful (because there seemed no way to get there), yet too scared to give up.
These days I feel like replaying U2 song all the time inside my head,
“I still haven’t found what I am looking for”.
But, Steve Jobs said,
“Keep looking, don’t settle”.
Then, I will.
It felt so incredible to be finally able to push the publish button for this post that had been staying on the draft folders for months.
Last year closed with some chaos, boggling mind and uneasy heart.
But, as always, problems mostly came with solutions. The pattern that I recognized whenever a problem aroused : it was bad, getting worse, then became the worst until it would get better and found the solution.
The period until hitting the rock bottom was indeed the hardest. Days went through anxiously. Hours spent waiting and kept looking the best way out.
When we thought we had found the solution, turned out it wasn’t enough. I learned that a good intention alone wasn’t enough. For certain situation, it could be largely misunderstood.
Last Monday one of the most intense days of this year, so far. Kept moving from one place to another doing things, driving in silence having conversation inside the head. Asked The One Who Deals with all affairs for some guidance. To be directed to right path to deal with this problem.
It never ceases to amaze me about the way your request answered. After a whole week in the dark, then the light just came. Slowly then suddenly.
That Monday, a trouble that had put so much weight on the chest finally lifted.
This recent chronicle made me more certain that dealing with human is the most complicated thing.
Dealing with kind of humans a whole day on that Monday was beyond exhausting.
The arrogant type, money without manner. The entitled one, request without respect. The full of bullshit one, talk with loud speaker, act in whisper.
But, among that three, thankfully I also dealt with the tactful and smart kind, one who focused on finding solution and made it happen.
Tough opening yet, my heart filled with so much gratitude that we passed another test with some price yet, all was clear.
A Penny for My Pensieve 