stories of some bad ass girl

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• Day 7

Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi rojiun. It's been 7 days since you're gone, Bapak. Yet, it still feels surreal. Like a bad dream that I desperately want to wake up from. Somehow I feel that you're still around. I see you everywhere too. Part of me still think that you'd be back somehow. No, I'm not in denial, I just..... miss you.

But, we're okay, Bapak. We're here to take care of Ibu. We no longer mourn but choose to celebrate your life more. We talk about you often and most importantly, we pray for you a whole lot. We miss you but we believe you're in a much better place. Allah has you in His keeping, we have you in our hearts. Bapak, I love you. May you rest in peace.

-trias-
-los angeles-

I've always been different growing up. My being the 3rd (middle) child might have added to it too, maybe. You know the old saying about being the middle child often has the sense of not belonging, the feeling of invisibility, which makes them try harder to get the attention from the parents to make them stand out more than the first and last child. They (read: experts and/or old people) even have it called a 'middle child syndrome'. I don't know... But yea, I grew up trying my best to annoy my parents, well, in my defense, I don't think I did it consciously. Compared to my other siblings, I wasn't the most polite child (my oldest sister was), nor the cutest (my youngest sister), and not even the worst (my brother haha!). Well, maybe I'm the second worst, which wasn't anything I should be proud of.

I grew up thinking I could do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. The sky was (and is) my limit. I was a tomboy and a bad kid too (I skipped school a lot during my junior high and finally got caught by my dad and boy did I pay much for it). I always love boys too. I know how to get them just by talking to them. I was (hopefully still is) a Miss Personality. I dated a lot. From one boy to another. I was obnoxiously flirty. My mom had (still has) problems with this "habit" of mine for liking boys so much. I always love English language. I wanted to travel overseas and spoke the universal language to anyone and everyone. I grew up knowing that if I speak English, everyone in this world would understand what I say. Make sense, right? Then I also always wanted to work in an office. I wanted to be a career woman, an independent woman who can afford anything on her own. I wanted to be bigger than the biggest.

Which isn't normal in any Indonesian culture guidebook.

By standards, an Indonesian woman is expected to be a good wife. Period. Oh yes, she can work, she can drive a car, she can play basketball, but at the end of the day, she MUST learn how to and become a good wife. Hey, first off, I'm not saying it's bad, I think it's great that a woman can be a good wife, but COME ON!! We, women, can become much more than that. We can be something bigger than that. Again, it's great to be a good wife, but when it's expected by the society, I think it's ridiculously silly. Human is human, regardless of its gender. We, women, should be allowed to have the same choices and opportunities as men, in any part of the world. Unfortunately, not in my part of the world. So yea, I'm fucked.

Before you punch me in the face for saying so, let me say this.

I tried.
No. Not just tried. I did what was expected of me as an Indonesian woman. Yes yes, I was married and did my best to be a good wife. Actually, I was a great wife. I did my best living my life by Indonesian standards. I was happy, but I turned into a different person who lived under a shadow of the person I was with. Yet, in my head, there's always this big question mark: Now what? Why do I feel lost being in this "happy" marriage? So, when the marriage fell apart, aside from feeling like the biggest failure in the face of the earth, I also felt..... relieved. Not happy, but relieved. For a few who knew me from/before the day I failed my marriage should know how devastated I was . I was broken, pathetic, lost, and pushed to the weakest point of my life. I lived in my own lonely little pathetic world (celibacy was part of it too) for a good one year.

But then I snapped out of it. HUGE thanks to my family and few of my friends who stood by me, helping me going through the worse time of my life. Kar who bought me a TV soon as I moved in to my own studio apartment. Sus who forced me to go get a vibrator to get through the celibacy time. Mel who gave me this silly book, sort of a guide, on how to be a BAD girl. Before I knew it, there I was having a buck fuddy, OK, two. ^-^

I learned my lesson the day I failed my marriage. Following the standard of a society is a good thing, but doesn't necessarily make one happy. Since then, I learned to live my life by whatever makes me happy. Sound selfish? Yes and No. It is a simple way of a person who wants to be happy. It is also my choice to make everyday a good day. To have a great time during miserable time. To be half full instead of half empty. It's my choice to laugh and not cry. To let go of hate and stop worrying so much. I learn to know that nothing, I repeat, NOTHING is a big deal. Because it doesn't matter how big of a problem I have, there's always someone else out there with a bigger problem. That's, my friend, when I know the exact meaning of "count your blessings".

Fast forward: Entering the 4th year of divorce anniversary *grinning*. Here I am. Stronger than ever. Bad ass for life. ^o^
[Monday, April 21, 2008]

Her mom and siblings and niece and nephew, movies, movies, movies, hats, unicorns, to smile and laugh, her friends, a Vinci Code, Mashimaro, manggo, black shirts, Gym, vodka-holic, tom Welling, dark chocolatte cuz its bitter, Korean language, Retro necklaces, Jeong ji-hoon, iPhones, Venice Beach, Nordstrom rack, hot guys with british accents, web design, Ebay, blogging (duh)

Pretentiousness, running (be in on a treadmill or outside), humidity, her left thumb, hypocrites, dangdut, hung-over, white shirts, tight pants, sandwich and salads, cowboy hats, black coffee, slow wifi