The Beauty of Me

At the beginning of last week, I felt very wronged. Why? It's because someone jokingly told me that she would feel humiliated if I had a boyfriend. I know, even though that was a joke, I already reached the stage where I would be easily affected by the statement. It wasn't her first time saying those kinds of things.

I spent more or less two days being so emotional about it... I was seriously considering to change myself into another person; a different me who would fit in and would actually attract a guy. I was seriously planning to pay her back for her words.

I consulted my friends about what was wrong from me and how could I change into a "better" me. Some of my friends showed me how I should dress and how I should behave. They told me the dos and don'ts of fashion. They criticized me for the way I look.

Well, I asked for it. I shouldn't complain.

However, I remembered some guy that told me I'm beautiful when I was dressing messily. If it was a joke, I wouldn't know... but one thing for sure, it was pleasant to hear such compliment.

Of course, my friends were confused having been told the compliment the guy gave me. "He said you're beautiful when you're dressed messily? How could it be?"

But my other friends told me that beauty is all about perspective.
Would a guy really attracted to me if I change myself and how I look?
Would I really be happy by changing myself?

Then I found this beautiful piece of writing by Paulo Coelho:

"We deny our own beauty because others can’t or won’t recognise it. Instead of accepting ourselves as we are, we try to imitate what we see around us. We try to be what other people think of as ‘pretty’ and, little by little, our soul fades, our will weakens, and all the potential we had to make the world a more beautiful place withers away. We forget that the world is what we imagine it to be.We stop being the moonlight and become, instead, the pool of water reflecting it. Tomorrow, the water will evaporate in the sun. And all because, one day, someone said: ‘You are ugly.’ Or: ‘She is pretty.’ With those three simple words, they stole away all our self-confidence.

And we become ugly and embittered.

Manuscript found in Accra

(taken from Paulo Coelho's Facebook page" 

It really, really moved me. After all this time, I finally believe in my own beauty. That's all I got to say.

Thank you, Mr. Paulo Coelho for helping me to find my self-confidence again. 

Hi there! (again)

Sudah lama saya tidak menulis apa-apa di blog ini, padahal sebenarnya banyak yang mau saya tulis. Yah, apa daya, akses ke internet terbatas dan sialnya hal ini tidak bisa dilakukan via telepon genggam saya.

Sejauh ini hidup telah baik-baik saja pada saya, dengan segala tawa yang bisa dibawanya pada saya dan juga banyaknya kegiatan yang bisa saya lakukan. Hidup sedang menjadi tidak membosankan :)

Saya baru berulangtahun beberapa hari yang lalu, nyaris seminggu yang lalu, dan sekarang saya sedang bergumul dengan novel-novel yang menjadi kado istimewa dari orang-orang istimewa saya. Tidak lupa, novel yang saya beli sendiri.

Bicara tentang novel, saya sebenarnya sudah lama tidak membaca novel. Selama ini, dengan Hallyu wave yang menyerang seantero dunia dengan sensasinya, saya ikut berenang-renang di dalamnya: terpukau dan terhibur oleh semua yang bisa ditawarkan ombak itu. Jadilah, hobi saya membaca novel sesaat terabaikan.

Namun, setelah saya menerima novel di tangan saya, keajaiban itu kembali.

Saya kembali dibuai imajinasi dan kata-kata penulis, membiarkan diri saya terbawa perwujudan cerita-cerita novel itu dalam benak saya. :) Sensasinya menyenangkan... dan istimewa. Kemudian, saya menyadari satu hal. Menonton, menyanyi, mendengar... semuanya menyenangkan. Semua menghibur dan bisa mengisi waktu. Yet, reading is at a whole different level. It lets you shape your own world, your own entertainment.

So, readers, read! :D

Have a great day!

Thank You :)

The smile
That you give to me and everybody else as well
The kisses
That you write in your messages to me and everybody else as well
The way that you listen to my stories
The way that you remember every part of it
The way that you treat me so nicely and everybody else as well
The way that I know I'm no part of your inner circle
The way that I know you treat me as one of your friends and no more

But even those are enough for me to thank you
For making my day when you tell me I'm beautiful
For taking care of me the night I was with you,
talking until almost midnight and I didn't want the night to end
Well of course those are enough for me to thank you
For being sweet in any way you could
To me and everybody else as well

Now that I know you might not remember
and that those are just a spark in your life
But I still need to thank you for being with me in those moments

So thank you, and thank you, and a thousand more thank you :)

[originally written on July 15, 2012]

A. P. H.

White as an empty sheet of paper
Green as a young leaf of lettuce
Was what we were defined


Blue as a swallowing ocean
Blue as the high sky
Blue as they refer to sadness
Was what followed


But I still remember
I keep remembering even though it hurts as hell
But I still remember
I keep remembering even though hatred comes

Blaming you was always an escape
From the shame and regret for being so naive
My heart was a beautiful flower made of glass
and I was so careless in treating it
So, it was not your fault that it is broken now
It was not your fault that I believed in everything

Now, it is another shame to keep remembering
It's another shame that my real emotion is hatred toward you
It's another shame to be chained to the times with you

But will you wait and see,
I'll be free and look back to us with a smile
...and I'll give us an appropriate goodbye.

[originally written in July 15, 2012]

Silence

Today is supposed to be the day when the families in our neighborhood work together to clean the entire neighborhood. It has been years since the neighbors gathered and worked together. Long, long time ago, when I had not even reached 10, we used to socialize that way. However, today is a bit different than I used to remember.

The husbands, the sons, the fathers were working together; literally working, cutting down trees, and socializing through work. On the other hand, the wives--the housewives--were just sitting and chatting with out loud laughter... which irritated me. It bugged me to hear them laughing instead of doing what they were supposed to do, that is to clean a small triangle park. It was even too small to be called a park. It disturbed me when my mother is the only one who actually swept the park. I joined her, of course, but it was really tiring to hear other housewives only laughing.

Usually I would be whining all the time, not to mention cursing, but this time I kept silent.

I don't know what made me choose to be silent, but it was not bad. I know that after this I might complaint to my mother, but at that time I felt like I had won against the silly housewives and my silly anger. It is a test for me also, to be silent and to swallow my anger instead of bursting it out.

I hope next time I would be able to vanish my anger fully.

Was I That Immature?

So. . . I have this one cousin.
Bright, talkative, confident, and very sure of herself. Tapi, dia sangat suka mendebat orang hingga terkadang keyakinannya terhadap pendapatnya ini membuatnya keras di dalam perdebatan. Saya sampai capek sendiri menghadapinya. Sekilas, dia terdengar menyebalkan. Maksud saya, sulit sekali untuk menjelaskan sesuatu padanya, apalagi memenangkan debat darinya.

Namun, dari perdebatan-perdebatan kecil yang kami lakukan, saya masih bisa menemukan hal-hal untuk ditertawakan. :) As I said, she's bright. Karena itu, perdebatan dengannya kurang-lebih memang harus dilakukan dengan berpikir keras agar bisa memberinya jawaban-jawaban dan argumen-argumen yang tepat. I used to fight her with all my might, but now I can say I am wiser.

Not wiser than she is, but wiser than who I used to be. :) Sedikit banyak saya belajar tahu argumen-argumennya didasarkan pada sudut pandangnya sepihak. Suatu hal yang wajar, karena dia memang belum benar-benar melihat dunia. Dia cerdas, tapi hanya dalam dunianya. Jadi, saya pun belajar untuk tahu kapan harus berhenti mendebatnya.

Hal lain lagi yang saya pelajari adalah kecenderungan anak seumurnya untuk merasa pintar. Dulu orang tua saya sering berkata saya sok sekali, saya merasa sudah lebih pintar dari orang tua dan orang-orang lain. Ternyata, setelah mempelajari karakter sepupu saya, saya sedikit-banyak terbayang juga seperti apa saya dulu.

Mungkinkah saya juga begitu dulu? I don't know :) it could be.

Finding New Family Members

It's been three days since my arrival back in West Java after going on a vacation. My newly-met family members are still the hot topic of my talks. There are a lot that I want to tell but somehow I lost my ability to describe the feelings perfectly. All I know is I am fully happy to be finally be able to meet them :)

When I met them, it was as if we had known each other for so long. Well. . .not exactly like that. Of course when I first met them, I held back a lot. I needed to know if they accepted me. Thankfully, they did and went our story on and on!

I wish to see them again soon, as soon as possible.

It's like I finally have a hometown to come back to :)