When The World Doesn’t Feel As Familiar
Last week, I remember the feeling in my body that something in my life wasn’t going the right way. I didn’t know what it was, and even until now I still pretty much don’t.
But I tried my best to find out, so I ended up booking a train ticket to Jogja for a (very, very) quick visit that consisted of just one day.
To be honest, if you asked me why exactly did I do that, my answer would be: I didn’t know either.
What the heck did I expect from a hardcore quick visit to a city that is around 283 miles away from Jakarta? Is a total of 17 hours train trip that cost so much money for a stay that is less than 24 hours worth it?
But I just wanted to escape, even for a second, from this city that literally never sleeps. So I did just that.
I arrived in Jogja at dawn, so it was pretty dark during my ojol trip from the train station to my friend’s place.
Since it was too dark, I couldn’t see clearly the things I miss the most about Jogja: the simple infrastructure of the streets, the buildings that weren’t too tall, or the sky that wasn’t filled with skyscrapers and polluting smoke.
When I stepped on my feet in Jogja, I was confused because the feeling of familiarity didn’t hit as much as I wanted. Everything stayed pretty much the same since I left that city around 8 months ago, however, it didn’t feel like home either.
A home.
Something I’ve been craving for since I left for Jakarta. Is home a place? Or a person? I have no idea.
My meetups with two of my best friends there went pretty well. It was nice to catch up a bit about our lives and I finally got to see familiar faces.
However, the meetups got me realizing something. I must accept the fact that we are all growing, and sometimes, this includes growing out of what I initially knew of them. Their faces might look familiar to me, but I kept thinking to myself as we were having conversation,
“Am I talking to the same person that I knew 8 months ago?”
Sometimes I forgot that the people in my life are actual people, with their own lives and everything.
I am happy to see them grow and slowly find themselves, but this also means that we will grow apart. Isn’t the thought of this somewhat saddening?
My friends and I are around the same age. We are all in our early 20s. The confusing, scary, and difficult early 20s. Most of us are graduating (or just graduated) from university, and just started our career as young adults.
But some of us are also getting married. Having babies. Breaking up with our childhood sweethearts. Starting new relationships with all the lessons we gathered from the past lovers. Dealing with the grief of losing a family member.
So many, so many phases collide in our early 20s. And because we are all so busy figuring these out, we don’t have that much energy to connect with our friends as much.
One by one, I feel like my grip towards my friendships started to losen up by themselves. My friends are growing, just like I am. If this means I have to witness us walking out of each other's lives, maybe this is just a part of growing up that we have to endure.
And sometimes, when all we want is a connection, here we are faced with so much isolation.
When I was packing my bags at the end of my visit to Jogja, I recalled a quote by an old friend from 2012,
“Terkadang, untuk melaju ke depan, kita harus meninggalkan apa yang di belakang.”
Translate: “Sometimes, in order to move forward, we have to leave what is behind.”
I couldn’t help but cry during the first 3 hours of my train trip back to Jakarta. Then a sudden burst of exhaustion just hit me like a storm, so I just fell asleep for the next 5 hours of the trip.
I am now sitting in my room in Jakarta, and it’s been three days since my quick visit to Jogja. I still found myself crying every day with different intensity, just to adjust myself to the reality that my old life will never come back.
However, I know that I left Jogja at that time with a feeling of satisfaction. The pricey quick visit was worth it because I went home bringing new information and new realizations.
Now let’s see if it’s enough to be a provision to face this strange, foreign life in Jakarta.
Let’s see if I can survive.
