My life has been working out so far, or so I think. This year I feel a little bit different about my life. Because of that, I decided to write this short reflection.
For most of my life, I have seen small wins as something I chase. I was born into a poor family with five siblings, so it sure had been hell for my parents to feed and nurture us. We have no money, but we have a brain, so my deceased mom said we could achieve anything if we were smart. Yet when I was in the first grade of elementary school, I was confused about why my mom stressed my grades. It was only reading and counting and stuffs so it was boring for me. All I thought at that time was how annoying my table mate, Firda because she said things I don’t like and I was sure she hated me that time for saying things she don’t like either. Or, I thought about my neighbor, Arin, and whether would I have a chance to play with her. Sometimes I thought about what time my father would come home since he was a sailor and he was rarely at home. Yes, my home. The big house in the middle of the field rice was the place I lived when I was a child, with all my siblings and my mother. It was a dark house with a cold floor, and I was scared to go to the backside of the house because there was no floor yet. It was cold soil and we should use sandals to walk over that part. There was a manual stove made of bricks and every dawn my mom used it to cook rice and made hot water so all of us could have a bath. And that was all of my thoughts when I was a child.
Things change, of course. I was growing up realizing my poor family couldn’t afford things I wanted, but my friends could afford them because their families were richer than mine. I was envious of the great pieces of stuff my friends had for most of my school time, like the cool jacket with bright colors and amazing zipper, or some cute binder with dashing papers they had bought. I envied how their skin was brighter than mine and how their hair was so beautiful and mine was ugly. I was envious when most of my classmates used Blackberry for their phones, and my mom could only buy me a Chinese phone. I was envious when I visited their house and saw my friends grow up in a house better than mine. I envied lots of things, but they envied me because of my grades, because the teacher remembered my name, and for things like that.
I enjoyed that feeling when they envied me even though they were my friends, at that time, we all were flexing anyhow so I was proud to have something they don’t have. That was the time I started to enjoy small wins I got in my life, such as being accepted in a good school my rich friends couldn’t afford or being the smartest in the class. As I think about it now, it was a way for me to compensate for my obvious envy. It became a habit until I entered college. My college friends knew exactly that I was ambitious and some of them were okay with it while some of them were not. Now, this habit just became a toxic trait in my life.
This year, especially in November, I realized that all of this time I focused on what I could and should have. I didn’t think for a second about things I could lose forever, while there were many precious things and people that had been lost from my life. God taught me about losing the first time when God took away my mom. I was in college at that time, and confusing about the research I should take for my undergraduate thesis. All of my life I thought my dad would be the first who left this world because he was having diabetes and a stroke but turns out it was my mom that God took away first. It was painful and the feeling was unbearable because to think and realize that you would never be able to be with someone you love, someone you need, someone as accepting as your mom. I had never thought about life without my mom and then suddenly she passed away. Suddenly all of my small wins were unimportant, my college was unimportant, and I could not think about myself anymore.
Then when I was adapting to grief after losing my mom, God gave me another lesson: patience. My dad was seriously ill at that time and when my mom was still alive she took care of him with little help from us. After she was gone I realized how hard it was for doing it. Taking care of my dad was so hard, I was only early twenty at that time and honestly, I didn’t have a special bond with my father so I felt I didn’t know the man who lived with me at that time. I had never actually spoken with him about my first love or how hard my envious towards my friends. It soon became a pain in the ass to take care of him, while my siblings were already busy with their life. And soon, the relationship I had with my dad was only about taking care of him.
As my graduation came, I thought about my next move, about what should I do for being a useful person in society. I was torn between leaving my house and my father so he would be taken care of by my brother or searching for some local job so I could still live with them. I was so highly thinking about myself until I didn’t realize that I only gave a small portion of helping in our house. I had a love-hate relationship with my father at that time because he was someone different after the sickness. He didn’t take much notice of me after he was ill, and I hated him because of it. It could have been said that I have daddy issues because of it.
Something happened at that time, I got an internship in Japan, and the little me that loves some small wins inside of my heart was no longer lurking inside of darkness. A spotlight was given to her at that time, and I, finally, thinking about myself again. Japan was sure some highlights of my life because I got to see a beautiful landscape, meet some new friends, and everything else. I got my heart both cherished and broken in Japan, and I had some wild yet amazing nights in Tokyo, longing for beautiful memories I held as long as I remembered that time.
Then I came home, and Japan was some memories away. Longing for the adventures I had, I felt jet lag, constantly useless in my home, and the little girl inside of my heart was asking more: a new job. Yes, I was unemployed after I came home, and for the first time, I felt I was confused about making a decision for my life. I wasn’t really sure what I want at that time, and I hated my father, felt upset with my brother and his wife, and everything else. Most of it, I hated myself because my life was awful. Those were some awful feelings.
What made me hate my life at that time was that my dad laughed at me. He laughed at me and mocked me for being unemployed. That was the other thing about my dad: he was extremely perfectionist, and having an unemployed child for him was like mocking, so he mocked me. But, when I was struggling in my attempts to have a job, he told me to be patient. Perhaps, it was the things I wish he could talk to me about more.
Then I finally got a new job, and I could feed my ego, yet with that small win, somehow I understood some weird sensations about my ego: I had the urge to fulfill it, yet sometimes I wanted to feel like what I had was enough. I thought about loneliness and longing more than my achievement, and I began to wonder with whom I would spend the rest of my life. The feelings of new adventures had begun to haunt me in a good way; a new adventure about finding my next step, and probably finding my soulmate. I didn’t realize that it was actually just another ego of mine. Yet as I thought much about the relationship, my own relationship with my father was decreasing. He had been so ill and being angrier was one of the conditions of his stroke. He began to be abusive, and it was painful. I felt and learned about pain, again and again, I felt pain when I lost my mother, I felt pain when I was unwillingly taken care of my father, I felt pain without realizing it when I looked for my father’s presence, and I felt pain when I got abusive traits from my father.
I left my house–which was a painful decision. I began to live by myself and find peace inside of my head. I didn’t realize that I started to have traumas, one of them made me so easily fall in love with any man I met. I began to want a steady relationship that I thought could wash away my loneliness and healed my wounded heart. I had met any kind of guy both virtually and directly rolled up to my life since that time, but they were hard to be understood, and so was myself. It was tiring but the feelings of solitude haunt my sleepless night. Despair and loneliness were my new toxic traits at that time. The little girl inside me wanted to have a better man than my father.
I care less about my father and I regret it since God took him away. Yes, I lost my parent again. God had sent me another lesson about losing someone. Bizarre feeling as I thought I will be okay if my father passed away, but it turned out to be the most painful sensation I ever had. Imagine having no parents, no one to be asked about my future husband, no one to be there at my wedding, no one. At that time, I just realized that I was alone, the feelings sadder than grief and more hurtful than solitude. Once again, I asked myself what do I want, and I still had no answer at that time.
I did the best of what I could: just existing, and living. My life was unclear, and all I could be proud of was my job, yet it soon became nothing with all solitude inside me. I just began to be working again just to fulfill my days, until the day they fired me. Yes, I was fired from my job as a reporter because of some treasury problems, they said. All I felt was another loss, another lesson. When I was doing so hard just to live, I took care of a cat, yet he was dead anyway, so I couldn’t stop thinking that God just constantly took away anything from me, first my mom, then my dad, then my cat, then my job, until I felt did I still have my ego? Did the little girl inside of myself still want any small win? Were those small wins important from the start if God could take them away anytime God want them? Was my life still have some importance? Can I still do it? Do I still have some spirits?
Yet the clock is ticking and my life is still happening, so there must be something else. My friend asked me to join him to search for another job in Japan, and as I thought about it, I prefer to refuse it. I refuse it because I feel there’s no point in searching for jobs halfway across the world if I’m alone. It may be fun and I’m free as a bird now, but that loneliness and solitude keep haunting me wherever I am, so it’s best in my place right now, trying to catch communications I have with people I have and cherish in this world like my siblings, my friends, and everyone. I knew exactly how unbearable the feelings of losing someone so I don’t want them to lose me. Then because my ego could only be fed with something else now, I think of my life as something new, that I have a chance to get a fresh start, for chasing things I want and how be settled with myself, having enough yet not feeling too quick to be satisfied. I want a steady career and a loving partner now, and I’ll get it for sure because what was lost will be found again.
ARCTURIAN 
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