when the end meets the beginning...

Jakarta, 18 January 2008

Today is my last day

My last day as an analyst in my current workplace

My last day of sitting here in this almost-homely business loung

My last day of living in a luxurious five star hotel

I should be jumping for joy

As I have earned my freedom at last

I finished with a big bang

With a succesful project

Yet I am partially scared...

Now I have no excuse

I have nothing to blame

I have nowhere to hide

Now I have to handle my personal problems

I have to heal my wounds

I have to live

I cannot hide behind work anymore

I cannot use my tight schedules as an excuse anymore

I cannot occupy my mind with work anymore

I now have to face what was lying underneath all of those excuses

I am scared of having to face my life

I am scared of having to be me again

Fuck! I even may have to start dating again

Or even worst... I may have to start to care again

Truth be told

The job did not derstroy me

It may actually helped

It makes me stronger

More importantly

It gave me a place to hide

Truth be told

I am addicted to the pain the job has given me

I can at least handle that pain

I can survive that

But can I survive the other pains?

The ones that has been eating me up from the inside

The ones that I tried not to acknowledge at all

The ones that I tried to hide...

I am still standing so far

Hanging on to dear life

Keeping busy with books and movies

Drowning myself in victional people's lifes

I plead and I plead now

To a God or to the universe...

Save me

Help me

Keep me strong

Keep me standing

Keep me alive...

Small Victory... Big Step for Tan

Jakarta, 17 January 2008

Woah... What a day...

Again I am sitting in my little corner of the business lounge

This time dressed in my best business attire

Black matching suit and a white shirt

With my loyal glass of red wine, cigarettes and laptop

But this time I have a big smile on my face

This time I feel like I deserve to be here

Among all the succesful looking business people

This time I feel like I am one of them

Put raise your glasses my friends

I am celebrating

Today I am celebrating my own success

I have aced the project I am doing

Almost single handedly

My client was impressed

Other peers was impressed and was actually happy

And this person is rearely happy with whatever work we do

I have done a god job

No... I have done a fantastic job

I have handled all my problems, work or non work related

And I have done a good job

On the rare occasion in my life

I am patting myself on the back

And I am proud of myself

I did it!!!!!

Letting go

Jakarta, 16 January 2008

Right.., here I am again in this luxurious business lounge, staring into the sparkling city view of Jakarta. And again, I am accompanied by my glass of red wine (second one by now), cigarttes, and laptop computer. I have my ipod in my ears, drowning the noise of the busy lounge. It is very busy here tonite. Business men gathering around tables discussing… businesses… some lone ones staring into their laptops intently. Wine, beer, booze flows freely, happy hour =) I watched them all, feels a bit unreal.

Strangely enough, tonite I embrace my solitude… my quite little corner in the lounge, with my own music playing in my ears. I have to let it go. I am letting go…

You know, one of my worst nightmares is to end up alone. To die alone. Maybe with a cat. But die with most of my life unshared. Noone to witness my existence. Slowly wasting away on my own. I know people would miss me when I die, I have enough friends who cared enough to miss me. They will cry and mourn my loss. And before I die, I will have enough money to support my old self. I will have enough money to pay for the most luxurious old people’s home. I will have the suite. I will have a very handsome young gardener. I will be me until I die.
Don’t get me wrong… I am not afraid of dying. I am afraid of living through the years before I die.

Anyways… I do have a point in this posting. Letting go. How do you know when to let go? Its one of those unanswerable questions I have. People say fight for it… people also say let go. Which one should I do?

I guess this is confusing for some who doesn’t know my history. That’s ok, you will understand in time, as I pour more of my heart into this. Let’s get one thing straight though, most of the times when I write something that is truly from my heart, I am under the influence of alcohol… as I am ordering my third glass of red wine now. Hey, it’s fucking free.

So, back to the question. How do you know when to let go? Here are the lyrics of the song that described me:

“Come to bed don’t make me sleep alone
Couldn’t hide the emptiness I’ll let it show
Never wanted it to be so cold
Just didn’t drink enough to say you love me
I can’t hold on to me
Wonder what’s wrong with me
….
Don’t wanna let it lay me down this time
Drown my will to fly
Here in the darkness I know myself
Can’t break free until I let it go
Let me go….
…
Darling I forgive you after all
Anything is better than to be alone
And in the end I guess I have to fall
Always find my place among the ashes
…
I can’t hold on to me
Wonder what’s wrong with me…
…
…. I’m gonna let it go…

And so the thoughts come to life...

Jakarta, 11 January 2008

How funny this life is
This 28 year old girl
Sitting alone in a fancy 5 star hotel business lounge
Enjoying a fine glass of red wine and a cigarette
Looking out the window to a view of a city she grew up in
Writing a report trying to help this God forsaken country
Who would have thought this girl is me now

In this funny world
People would have thought that I have made it
I have become someone important
With success written all over my forehead
An Indonesian girl living in a foreign country
Earning a good living and going somewhere with her life

Who would have thought I would be this girl
And yes, I am still a girl
As the successful looking business man next to me pointed out
She is young and unmarried
Chasing her career first before anything else

But what is that something else
Family? Kids?
Normality?
Happiness?

I wonder if anyone who sees me here
Ever thought that I am here because I have nowhere else to be
No one to be with
No home to come back to

The night city lights now sparkle in front of me
The vast world is out there still
And I am here, with my wine, cigarette, laptop computer…
Alone

How did it all begin?

Here I am joining the millions of people who has found refuge in the blog world. I guess we all need some sort of an outlet, somewhere we can express ourselves, our opinion, our thoughts or just share random fun facts. Like the fact that male swans have penises.

We digress... I think, I will enjoy this blogging thing. I have many thoughts that I have not shared with anyone, I have a lot of questions I could not answer. Though someone has said to me "never ask a question that has no answer". Very wise. But I cant help it. I have plenty of those unanswerable questions. A lot of problems I cannot solve, or maybe they are unsolveable.

But anyways, I want to be able to share all my thoughts here. I hope this space would create a save space for me to express my thoughts and may be feelings (eeekkksss...), and for anyone who wants to comment or post things as well. I expect no judgement to what I write here, and in return, I will not place judgement to any comments or postings. I expect this space would be a very personal space for me. But that does not mean I dont want comments, I do. I want to discuss things, argue, debate things that matters to me and hopefully that matters to anyone else.



So... now that my introduction is over, here is how it all begins for me.. how I come to blogging...

I was alone in my luxurious five star hotel room... my personal luxurious prison. I was completing a project in Jakarta, Indonesia. I have four more days to work. And my work was manageable, which was a change from the normal un-manageable panicy save-me-from-this-shit schedule and deadlines. So I was just wasting time before moving from my room to the executive business lounge to do my work, when my friend invite me to look at her blog. Blog??? What the hell is that?? (Ok, I know, I know, what century was I born in right? I'm just a bit slow and reluctant to join the online world, only just join Facebook... and already addicted to it.)

So I checked out my friend's blog, which is: http://shotliverfreak.blogspot.com/ and thought.. this is cool.. I like the idea. Then as my day progressed, things happen and I started to think. I have so much to say... not to anyone in particular really... but I have so much to say, and never had a place to say it. So many thoughts have been locked up within me... and few days passed and the locked up thoughts are starting to resurface. It feels like my thoughts knew, that now they will have a place, a space to exist outside of my head. And my thoughts are relieved, now they can trully exist...



And so tonite it begun... my thoughts will no longer be prisoners in my head. They have a space to exist savely.