“ Didn’t we just meet 4 months ago?”

“ Didn’t we just meet 4 months ago?” my friend said while I was showing a picture of us, traveling to Surabaya. That trip felt like many moons ago, yet to me that felt like a year had gone by.

I suppose, once we’re older, life feels like it flashes by us. It’s like a TLDR story that starts with, long story short… This is where we are.

The Weight of Expectations

In my society by this age, a woman should be married, have a couple of kids and a home. While society progresses a bit, I was not immune to the same question during this holiday from my family given my youngest cousin is settling down and has a cute baby girl. Me and my other unmarried cousin were asked the same questions, “ When are you going to get married?”, “What do you do now?” and several other business as usual questions during family gatherings.

Everyone Else Is Moving Forward

Strangely, I also started seeing my friends suddenly speeding up their dating process. They suddenly said they wanted to have kids, pursue marriage and settle down for good. It’s not quite a surprise, our biological clock is ticking louder and gets louder by day. And the career that we have, the hobby, all the noise we used to have failed to dampen the sound of those clocks.

For someone who is just starting out from scratch again, the feeling of being behind gets even real. And had I not learned how to ground myself, I would wallow in constant anxiousness and despair.

The thing is for my entire twenty eight years existence, to have made it this far is an achievement on its own. In my younger days, I constantly compared myself and tried to live up to someone’s life not knowing that all I needed was that single step of courage to live the life I always dreamed of.

Making It This Far

I eventually took that courage last year.

I got baptized early this year and since then, I felt like I was a born new person. But being baptized was just a chain of events from many other things that needed to be reset in my life. From my faith, work and personal life, everything was brand new.

Unlike before when I felt like I was behind, strangely I didn’t feel it that intensely.

Many of the things in my past were performative and only now, I am truly living the life I used to write about. Having discipline, confidence, and finally following through my plans.

Back in the day, I wanted to fit in that badly or looked in a certain aesthetic. The thing is, sometimes I don’t even like those things. Some of the lifestyle that I aspired to have isn’t quite practical for my life or current reality.

I forgot to simply water my own plants to live the life I really wanted.

When I started watering my own plants, I saw my life thrived.

Finally Finding Peace in Uncertainty

Despite life turmoil and challenges, I didn’t flinch. In fact the challenges I’ve faced these past couple of months gave me closure to many of my lifelong problems.

I used to complain a lot about living paycheck to paycheck. I also used to worry a lot about not having jobs and wanting to secure projects or jobs. These days… I don’t worry about those things.

Despite not having any money, I worry less. I simply stick to doing my best at some of the things I am currently doing. I am sure, my efforts won’t be in vain.

There were many things I simply worried and insured about that suddenly stopped being significant. While in the background I am working on it, they didn’t really come from insecurity rather than wanting to simply live a more balanced life.

Before turning twenty nine in a couple of months, I wanted to write a prelude to another year full of surprises and adventure. And this is the prelude to that.