Turning Twenty-Five

We had been trying to be adults since we
were 15
When we finally reached 18, nothing
changed
It wasn't until we were lying on the
bathroom floor
Drunk and high in two different states
That we realized
Age is just a number
And reality is learning there's no such
thing as being an adult
You only grow older
                    And if you're lucky
                                         Maybe a little wiser

What is it that makes people think it's okay to be lost when you're 24, but once you turn 25 you're going to have to get your shit together. Who makes up that rule? What difference would one year make?

In case anyone cares, I turned 25 earlier this week. And dare I say, I have lived my life to the fullest.

My 24 was one hell of a year. On that year, for the first time, I was forced to be an adult. My mother fell sick. Not just any usual kind of sick. But the kind of sick that affects the whole big family. For the first time, my mom wasn't there to help me decide whatever kind of major decision I had to take in life. She has gotten a lot better now (thank God). But a little too many things have changed, I can't even remember how life used to be before the year 2014.

On the age of 24, I let go of the man I thought I was going to marry for the rest of my life. I ended a five-years relationship just because I wasn't sure with him anymore and the decision is still haunting me till this day.

I have found many new kinds of love along the way. I opened up myself to any kind of possibilities. I accepted any kind of affections I thought I deserved. I had a taste of the forbidden love affair. I even was "the other woman" for a moment there (and then another moment. Look what have become of me, Ma).

I met my so-called soulmate.

I met another version of me.

I met a lot of new, interesting people.

I even reconnected with a long-lost friend... or firstlove. Only to be lost again.

I had more life in one year than I ever had in my previous twenty-three years. So I thought, really, what is it in life that still can surprise me? I shouldn't be worried too much now............ except maybe, the fact that I'm 25 and still just as lost.

Opening poem via Hello Poetry

It’s Not That I Can’t Find A Man To Love Me, I Can’t Find A Man I Love

via Elite Daily

A Love That Never Was

In the very last episode of Ally McBeal, Ally had to move out to New York for the sake of Maddie's health. John, alone at his office, was reminiscing about some of the earliest meaningful conversation he had with Ally. The two had grown closer each year ever since they found out that they could understand each other's weirdness. They had a date once, which ended somewhat terribly. And John had to call it quits because it was apparent to him that at the time Ally was still in love with someone else from her past. At one point, Ally entertained the idea that they may have been made for each other and confronted John about it. But John was seeing someone else at the time and he began to see that their similarity made them best at being each other's therapist --not lover. Ally agreed that they shouldn't ruin their valuable friendship by contaminating it with love.

But for John, Ally would always be something special because in a world full of judgmental people, Ally is one of a very few people who gets him. In their own words, John no longer felt like he was the weirdest person in the room when he's with Ally. It's a blessing to ever have a chance to find someone who can make you feel that way and John knew it. He didn't get to meet someone like Ally everyday and everywhere. So it's very natural for him to cling onto her. It's very natural for him to want her for himself. And it's very natural for him to make another attempt...

John's musing was interrupted by Nelle's presence, who apparently had been standing there at his office unnoticed for quite some time.

"Nelle? Hello? How long have you been there?", asked John, slightly annoyed.

But Nelle knew too well what had been bothering him. "Have you talked to her?"

"Who?"

"Ally."

"About what?"

Nelle just looked at him.

"Nelle, we all move on at some point," he said finally, this time he had retreated back into his wise and tender self. "Richard's getting married. Ling became a judge. Ally's going to New York. People move on. It's part of life. People move on."



And though you should just be my John Cage, why am I feeling this pain in my chest?

Madly in Love

What actually terrifies me the most is the possibility that I might never really find "the one".

Not because "the one" doesn't exist, but because I'm naturally unable to compromise. Because when push comes to shove, I will always resort back into thinking about my own happiness; about what makes myself happy. And if to include someone else in the equation would make myself less happy than I originally was, then why on earth would I be keeping that person in my life? And I'm telling you it's tough. Because I'm so good at being alone.

There's this defense mechanism I've built, that no matter what kind of situation you throw at me, I will adapt. You leave me on my own long enough, I'll learn to live life without you. I'll be expert at it, even. It may be hard at first. I will be missing you so bad till I cry. But I will cope. I always cope. I think people should start learning to not undermine my ability to cope. Because once the coping mechanism succeeds, I end up stronger, maybe even stronger than you...stronger than you to the point that I no longer need you in my life. And that's where the danger lies in my past relationship and possibly in every relationship I will be in the future.

I guess I've always been indifferent in relationships anyway. I mean if you still want me then good for us but if you don't then leave. I'm not the type who's willing to hurt myself by crying over someone who doesn't want me anymore. But that is why the thing I hope for most (as Ally also mentioned it once in her more memorable closings) is emotional dependence. I wanna meet, fall in love with and be with somebody I can't bear to live without. Somebody that will let me taste some of the madness of not being able to let someone go.........of loving someone more than life.

I mean we all want to be madly in love, don't we?

I May Look Calm and Smiling But In My Head I'm Ally McBeal

There Are No Tomorrows For This Heart of Mine

Surely time will lose these bitter memories
and I'll find that there is someone to believe in
and to live for something I could live for.

All the years of useless search
have finally reached an end.
Loneliness and empty days will be my
only friend.
From this day love is forgotten
I'll go on as best I can.

What lies in the future
is a mystery to us all.
No one can predict the wheel of fortune
as it falls.
There may come a time when I will see that
I've been wrong.
But for now this is my song.

And it's goodbye to love

I'll say goodbye to love.

.
.
.
(The Carpenters - Goodbye To Love)

Something That I (Don't) Want

There are two kinds of pain.
The first kind of pain is the pain of wanting something you don't have.
The second kind is the pain of having something you don't want.

Having experienced both, I must say that the second one is a lot worse.

I spent most of my teenage life either trapped in a twisted love triangle (where I'm the third person) or longing for someone who doesn't even know I exist. Yes. My love life was pathetic from the start. But I never knew that it could be even more pathetic once I "found someone" who actually reciprocates my feeling. Or not. I don't even know what kind of feeling that was.

But what if the man you love turns out to be not like the man you thought he was? You end up "having something you don't want." What do people do with things they don't want? They get rid of them.

You wish it was that easy. It's not, though, and it's late. That man you don't want is wanting you. You are left with two choices: having something you don't want for the rest of your life, or getting rid of that one person who really really wants you and thus becoming the subject who inflicts the first kind of pain.

There are two kinds of lover.
Those who compromise.
And those who wait for their own knight in shining armor.

Mental Pictures

It started as a joke. My dad, he sometimes casually said he would like to go to Kalimantan after he retired from his job. Also back then when we talked about my future, we used to be half-jokingly saying things like, "It's okay if you have to get a job across the sea. It's okay to have a job in Kalimantan." Why Kalimantan?

But never, never in a million years that I ever thought I would really be going there. Oh come on, it's not a big deal. It's just another province. It's not like you're going to another country. Well actually, living in the biggest archipelago in the world, it is a big deal. Because when you said you're moving out to another province, there's 90% that province you're talking about is literally overseas. But, you know, not overseas overseas. It's just...across the sea. And being a developing country with unbalanced national development, visiting another island could really feel just like visiting another country. Not that I'm going to lament about the contrasting difference between urban area and rural area. I actually like rural. It's just...the distance that I must travel to go back to those I've grown to love...

Twenty-five (almost) years of my life, I have never left my hometown for a very long period of time. Now that I'm experiencing it for the first time, strangely, it almost feels like dying... That strange feeling like you won't be seeing these people you've been seeing all your life. You start to wonder how they would be living their life without you. Are they going to miss you? Are their lives just going to move on like nothing substantial happens?

Will they be okay?

Some times you sincerely hope they will. But other times you wish they won't because you want your presence to at least ever mean a thing. You are beginning to hold tight to those last moments you share with them. Secretly you don't want them to let you go, but who are you kidding, you're the one who's leaving...

So you begin collecting the "looks". You're taking mental pictures of how they would look at you if they knew they won't be able to see you again in a very, very long time.

But counting down the days to go is just ain't living and I just hope you know
That if you say goodbye today I ask you to be true
'Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you

Meeting Ally McBeal

My meeting with Ally McBeal is something I would like to call "an act of God". She came to me when I most needed her. Though of course at that time, I didn't know I need her. I didn't know that what I truly need in life to help me get through the day is daily dose of McBealism.

It all started when I developed this thing I'd like to call "James Marsden madness". I was obsessed to watch everything the guy was ever in. (I still am.) Somehow, Ally McBeal came last. I thought it through several times before I finally decided to check this one out. American drama series normally doesn't interest me. Little did I know that Ally McBeal is a whole different kind of drama. And then there's Ally, its titular character, who is, at this moment, my spirit animal because she's awesome.

Being a fan of James Marsden, I naturally started the series from Season 5, the only season Marsden was in. A decision I later found to be an advantage because Season 5 is considered to be the least enjoyable season of them all and I, not yet knowing what to expect, can enjoy Season 5 as what it is. And I must say it's actually pretty descent or else I wouldn't even bother checking out the rest of the series.

So my first ever Ally McBeal episode is titled "Friends and Lovers". The episode begins with Ally talking to her therapist about what happened to her earlier that day.

"It started off perfectly," she began her story, "I've been having a lot of perfect days actually and this promised to be another one. Then boom! I ran into myself."

"You ran into...yourself?" asked the therapist in disbelief, much to my own disbelief. Running into yourself? Ally, what are you talking about? What kind of show am I watching?

And then Ally went on saying how she had this lost look and how she reminded her of herself and that she's basically her because she and her ex-boyfriend also worked together before she got fired and now she's brokenhearted.

"Over losing her job?" her therapist asked.

"No, no no. Her ex-boyfriend." Hmm, interesting.

"She was like me, so I...I hired her," she continued.

"YOU DID WHAT?" asked the therapist, now in shock.

"What? I've come to a point in my life where deep, deep down I long to be..." she paused, "a...mentor."

In which her therapist responded with a facepalm, "Dear God, no." Cue opening credit and I am hooked. This show is something. This Ally is something!

So in my first meeting, what I knew about Ally is that she's a single, working woman, whose love life is apparently not as bright as her career. Ring any bells?

Continued viewing shows that by no means I had experienced the love life Ally had experienced but still, we seem to share a lot of the same beliefs, the same values, and we even view love in the same way, in which we both believe that everyone should end up with their one true love, how two people who are together should stay together forever. Simply put, we both believe that "happily ever after" exists. But in doing so, we're unintentionally hiding behind a wall, a protection from the harsh and ugly reality of love, built by the fear of not ending up with "the right person". Oh, and did I mention we both also like to dance? (especially when no one is around)

Jenny (the girl she ran into) questioned whether she's aberrant to have a male best friend, in which Ally responded that one of her best friends is also male. She mentioned John Cage, and how she loves him.This raised another important issue: soulmates. Do we all get to marry our soulmate? Ally considers John a soul mate. They get each other's eccentricity. Their relationship is the most endearing throughout the series. So why don't they just get together already, you probably ask.

Just ask the lonely, they know the hurting pain of losing the love you can never regain~

"As much as I love him as a friend, there's just no heat," Ally told Jenny, "I'm just not attracted to him." Poor John. I told you this whole love business is ugly.

By the way the episode ends with Ally back in her therapy session.

"If you don't mind my asking, why do you feel the need to protect Jenny?"

"Well, that's obvious. Because I used to be her."

"Ah. And what are you trying to protect her from?"

"I don't know. Maybe from... becoming..."

"Who you are today?"

"And who am I today?"

"Somebody who desperately wants love, but who no longer believes in it." Ouch. Even Ally explicitly says that it's an offensive thing to say to somebody, not to mention hurtful.

The therapist said he's sorry. Ally demanded him to fill her on why he thought that.

"You're not willing to be with a man you think is capable of hurting you," he answered. Double ouch. Plus I'm sold.

Six episodes later, I decided that I must know all of her story from the get-go...

Compromising Position

It feels like only yesterday when I was young and naive, eagerly looking for love --eagerly looking for what everyone else called "love". But now I'm old and jaded and no longer believe that love is the answer to what I was looking for.

I'm only 24, by the way. So I'm not that old. Okay, I'M TWO MONTHS AWAY FROM BEING 25 (AND I'M FREAKING OUT!). So I guess maybe I am old. I feel old. I feel old because in your twenties you are supposed to be at a point where you meet "the love of your life". In your twenties you're not supposed to lose the love who you thought was the love of your life. Breaking up in your twenties is hard. I mean almost everything that happens in your twenties is hard. But breaking up is really, really hard. At this age, you watch your friends who haven't been in a steady relationship start being in a steady relationship. And those other friends who have been in a steady relationship, they start going for the next step of their relationships. Marriage. (Also, babies).

Meanwhile you, fresh from getting your heart broken and your dreams crushed, wonder how long these wounds will heal and when you will be "ready for love" again. What if it takes too long. What if that chance has passed you by unnoticed.

What if you missed it.

What if you'll never find "the one". What if there is no "the one" and everyone else on earth is just compromising. What if you shouldn't end that one-relationship-that-went-rather-well-until-you-weren't-sure-he's-"the-one"?

image

Pilot

I don't remember how it started.

Maybe it was since I majored in one of those exact science majors which needed me to always be exact and logical? Hyperboles and touchy-feelies are for the weak.

I miss being able to pour my thoughts into free essays without having to do a deep research beforehand. I miss being able to state my opinion without having to worry whether anyone is going to agree. I miss being able to share my deepest feelings without being afraid to be judged as "whiny" or..."immature". I used to be able to do all that when I was, like, nineteen, maybe.

Nowadays my courage in expressing thoughts and feelings in writing is limited to reviewing movies. Also limited to only movies I already know so well because you didn't want to sound like you didn't really know what you're talking about. It was fun (because I LOVE movies) but it got tedious sometimes. And apparently I need another form of support system.

Hope you don't mind it.