04-October-2006

I avoided the internet for a month after seeing Jai’s latest MSN screen name: “I’m over you.” I sunk into that familiar heartbreak. It’s not bad enough that he removed me his contact list when he thought, “If you could have the heart to leave me, then you don’t deserve to be remembered”. He just had to add insult to injury by telling everyone in his contact list how over he is of me.

Like, how could Jai get over me? How dare he get over me? All I could think of, night and day, was Jai. I’d be having friends in my face and would still have Jai closer to me than any of them. If I hadn’t gotten over him when I was the one who bailed out on our marriage, how could he get over me?

I could have just removed him from my contact list. I could have just dismissed him the way he acted out his dismissal. But I kept writing and thinking about him. Verses and prose poured generously out of desperate longing for him. I was still waiting for him. Waiting for him to miss me enough to initiate contact, may it be a risen hell or methodical damnations. A part of me still clenched with fear of his disapproval. All of which meant how undone I was with him.

What made it harder was that I was getting involved with a new guy who, at first, reminded me so much of Jai. Every time a sweet moment passes between him and me, I’d automatically recall Jai, thinking “now why couldn’t I have this with Jai?”

Then one day, just like the day he removed me from his contact list, I said “this is the last time that you’re going to hurt me.”

That’s when I removed him from my list. That’s when I stopped waiting for him. That’s when his solitary email couldn’t stir or twist a single emotion in me. The relief of having a light heart again after so long was similar to the relief I feel when releasing a block of frozen shit off my ever constipated butt.

Of course, daylight can be deceitful. It makes my heart hopeful and strong. Whereas when dusk falls, and darkness shrouds all secrets with restlessness, and thoughts of Jai came back.

These thoughts came back in a form that made me understand, and certainly believe, that he never really loved me. At least not the way that I wanted to be loved. He didn’t love me; he couldn’t love me, because there was always someone else better. It could have been someone I should’ve become, or someone he expected me to become, or someone who was beyond his reach. Either ways, he couldn’t love me for me. That’s why marriage to Jai was the most frustrating love I ever experienced, because we both loved each other, but for the people that we weren’t.

What amazed me was that all of these insights emerged with mock anger and playfulness I never thought existed in my feelings for him. I felt so ridiculous that I practically giggled when I called him a “big, fat liar”.

And that’s when it really happened. When I got over him too.

Why I Left Saudi In The First Place

Must I?

Mama was telling me to go back to Saudi, for the hundredth time, last night.

Her urges usually come in a repeated mantra. “Go back, work there, teach there, get married to Asim, then live in Riyadh with him.”

Why I Can't Live There

I tell her that I can’t stand living in Saudi. I tell her that even Asim has forgiven my inability to live there. The one thing I haven’t told her is that I can’t live in a country where I am nothing but an extension of men. I can’t live in Saudi without my set of men. Father, brother, driver, mu3aggib, and/or husband.

In Saudi, I’m considered as a full person only when there is a man who approves it. I can only work when my mahram approves it. I can only travel abroad only when my mahram approves it. I can only go to work and school and visit friends and loiter in the café only when there is a man who approves to take me there.

I couldn’t stand living in Saudi for the half-heartedness of life. You’re never really alive in Saudi. Not in normal conditions. The course of life is based on consumerism; you work to buy more things. You work to buy a smarter computer, a faster car, a bigger house, a prettier dress. You work so that you can afford lavishness and efficiency. You work so that you can spend more. You work because there’s nothing else to do.

You never know who you’re trying to impress and entertain. Smarter to do what? Faster to beat what? Bigger to house what? And underneath all of those facades, can it make your heart and mouth prettier?

I got tired of that tiring cycle. Things don’t impress me. The Saudi education doesn’t impress me. The nights out, the boys, the opinions, the materialism, the drugs, the religiousness, nothing impressed me anymore.

My inability to get amused and impressed with things murdered my readiness to live. I lost my home, and got sick with incurable longing for the gone. The gone is gone, and if I try to relive the gone, only disasters happen.

Why I Can Live Here, In Indonesia

I can’t explain to my mother why I enjoy my current life in the middle of disasters. I can’t afford most of the things I buy. I can’t afford most of the meals I eat. I keep cheating on my savings plan like there’s no tomorrow. And hell if I care, because my life has never been so real.

I love the trips I take from home to work, from work back home, even though I bitch in every second before I start walking. Seems like as soon as I start walking, my mind is forced to think basic: (literally run and) catch that bus, watch out for pickpockets, find a place to eat without getting food poisoning, feed dog and cat, walk, walk and walk some more, walk dog, pray, sleep, breathe, eat.

The only time I really think about the gone is right before I sleep, and the moment I wake up. And that’s more wakeful dreams than I need.

The wakeful dreams are the only thing that keeps me writing these days. Probably the reason I write is to shut them up. And these dreams about the gone are always the same. Seasoned with sadness and longing, they’ve taken a permanent spot in my brain, and as easy to bring up as dropping the ashes of my cigarettes.

But at least these dreams only come in the first and last moments of waking, and the weekends. That’s why we’re looking for another job to quench the rest of those dreams.

Why I Want To Do This Alone, For The Time Being

A bunch of people, other than my mother, have commented on my fierce singleness. My lack of effort in meeting and dating anyone amazes them. And my nonchalance considering the concept of marriage scares them. My soft-spoken landlady actually said that “a girl like you should have a lot of boyfriends.”

I can’t help the carelessness and meanness I carry in my behavior towards men. It’s not like I don’t want to be married, have kids, and die fast. I just don’t care anymore. The men I’ve met are so predictable, so below my esteem. Maybe my expectations are too high for normal men to fulfill, but my expectations were once filled (before they burnt out with anger and loneliness) by a real person and (looking at the amount of damage it caused from those fulfilled expectations) I don’t really want my expectations to be filled again so soon.

This is what my mother, and all of the elders who encourage me to marry and settle, cannot understand. That I’m not selling my peace of mind for anybody’s approval.

Scribbles

This is how one month, or maybe more, can be broken down into a set of paragraphs…

Languages
I found out that English is best used in expressing neutral, technical and happy thoughts. English is used when the talk is about theories of evolution, about the way to Setiabudi Building, about the way my children greet me at the end of the day.
That’s why English is actually my writing tongue. Not Indonesian, which is my mother tongue. Not Arabic, which is my learning tongue.

Bahasa Indonesia is used when poetry slips off my fingers out of sadness and longing. It is also the language in which the superego speaks and yells. And since both poetry and superego carry the saddest, worst news, my Indonesian poems are raw and my behavior unreasonable to those with reason.

Arabic is the most masculine language I’ve ever met. Whatever the form, let it be poetic or prose, feminine ‘you’ or masculine, Arabic is only used when the argument is no longer an argument, but an order. Love, in Arabic, is inarguable. It is there to stay, to hurt and to teach. Whether or not you want to learn or love. Whether or not you agree or care. Whether or not you receive or produce it.

That’s why the most romantic language in the world is Gibberish because love is beyond the definitions of language. Those who think that French is a romantic language only think that because they don’t know how to curse in French. Like Bangla and Hebrew, which I barely can understand but have the ability to caress my heart deeper than Arabic or English or Indonesian. Gibberish is the language I use to speak with my cat and dog. Gibberish is the language used with those whom I’ve fallen in love with.

People, Loving
I saw a woman get off the back seat of a motorcycle the other day, a man was driving it. She handed the helmet she was wearing to him, and kissed the man’s hand goodbye, then walked away to the crossing bridge that lead to the bus terminal. All in plain, automatic fluent accuracy of a daily (good) habit, that I take for granted would always occur whether or not those two in good terms. I hope I haven’t laid a bad eye on them with my stare.

I’m more worried about this couple which I stared at harder and longer, partially because their interaction took a longer time. This woman was standing in front of a man who placed his hand around her nape, holding her face close to his, both completely oblivious to their surrounding. With one hand on her nape; thumb rubbing her cheeks and lips, another hand balancing the motorbike between his legs. This silent interaction might have taken a full minute, and I almost wondered whether or not I should pull out my camera to digitalize the moment.

When he released her nape and broke off the hypnosis session with a sigh, and I was finally able to take my eyes off them before falling into a ditch ahead. Looking back at them, I hated their intimacy; mostly missing that kind of interaction, when both parties bid farewell to each other at the start of a day by saying things like “have a nice day, I’ll see you later. I love you.”

Freedom
Freedom is still the overrated illusion, the mythical goddess I chase. We’re very subjective when we define freedom, because each of us has her own restraints. We’d long for one night stands when the boring husband walks in with that all-too-familiar look on his face, with his familiar cock, familiar maneuvers, and familiar sighs of orgasms. We’d be praying for the handsome prince, driving the shiny white car, offering all the boring securities and facades only a marriage could conjure up, once we’ve dated too many men and swallowed too many disappointments and crossed out too many names off our phonebooks.

Maybe freedom is just having the strength and knowledge that we have something to live for every time we reach pointlessness and ask ourselves that question: “what’s next? Where do we go from here?” Some people live on teaching, some on childrearing, some on accumulating money and power, while others are weathered enough to realize that it’s the small things that matter the most like afternoons spent reading at the side of a cup of coffee.

I’m nursing my own freedom, these days. It’s still infantile, so it’s very easy to lose my freedom’s definitions and compositions. My freedom isn’t defined by place or time, more by routine actions that are repeated in different times. After all, may it be single or married, freedom is just having and loving the things you wake up for every morning and come home to every evening.

35 Stuff

1. I’m 100% Indonesian

2. I just a Saudi citizenship

3. I’ve been to 19 countries; at least 40 cities

4. Between those travels, I lived in Jeddah for 22 years, in Amman for 3 years, in Aceh for a year, and I'm now residing in Central Java.

5. I travel so much that I can build a nest anywhere

6. I converse in three languages, and curse in 5 others. Do you wanna know?

7. I love food and - of course - I’m fat!

8. I can't be bothered about appearances, so you don't worry about trying to impress me, I already am!

9. I’ve been writing since I was 9 years old, and my diary was my best friend since

10. My other best friend is the cigarette, but it's a one sided love, I know.

11. I love cats and dogs.

12. I'm a great therapeutic masseuse, ask anyone I've massaged

13. I used to love to booze and funny-cigarettes, but the Timekeeper told me that I can't do that anymore

14. Oh yeah, and from March 2008, he took me under his wing, so that I don't get lost anymore

15. I have a rocky relationship with my mother.

16. Which is my explanation why I have a strange self-image.

17. I think romantic love is overrated, just like everything else in life

18. My friends ask me about sex & relationship, and my advice works like wonders, just not for me.

19. For a long time, I confused sex with love

20. I used to think that I'm bisexual, then I found out the hard way that I'm not.

21. I think homosexuality should be as sublime as heterosexuality, but it's fun to tell until it's embarrassing to know

22. I think that world moves on two purposes: satisfying the stomach, and what's below it.

23. I'm always right until proven wrong

24. I don't have a plan, so don't ask

25. I'm not in a rush, so don't tell me about biological clocks.

26. I love physical activity, as much as it scares me to ache.

27. I try everything, at least once!

28. I like people, seriously, the more I know is the better I feel about myself

29. I’m comfortable with what I don’t know

30. Freedom and money and long-term commitments scare me

31. I’m very proud of my siblings and cousins

32. I'm well-aware of my neurotic tendencies; that I’m self-centered and egoistical, but the Timekeeper doesn't mind

33. I'm nice to hang-out with as long that you don't bring textbooks

34. I love stories, so tell me some

35. I think you're my best friend, otherwise you wouldn't read all of this narcissistic garbage

If you hate living in Saudi Arabia, if you hate your life wherever you are, read this.

I'm leaving the country in four hours from now. I don't know if it's permanent or not, but I'm not leaving my cat behind, just in case.

Tell you the truth, I'm as sad and terrified as I am excited about going. What if I don't make it out there? What if I don't have the stuff to keep me from falling back to this 'comfort zone' that I'm so used to? What if, after all the fuss to keep me from coming back here, I realize that this is HOME?

I've heard lots of people congratulating me for leaving in the last week. As much as I've heard people lamenting it. Everyone wishes me luck, though, I just don't know if that's all it takes: A slice of Lady Fortuna's cake.

Anyhow, even if I do come back, I know that I can at least gloat about the fact that I've tried to break the barriers and do what a lot of people wonder about. Whatever the results may turn out to be, there's no denying that what I'm doing now is just another step in actualizing myself. It could be a wrong step. But it's a step that I'm putting my whole mind and heart into it. And that's all that matters right now.

So, Mr. Head and Aadi, if you're reading this, consider the fact that it doesn't matter where you live or what choices you're stuck with. The question is, are you living your life being true to yourself? Are you sincere in what you're doing?

Because in the end of the day, the ONLY point of our life, in working, in living, in learning, is Ibadah (All acts of worship for Him).

Please take care of yourselves.

Beginnings and Endings

Does it take only words to destroy or build everything?

When God said, “let there be light”, did He also set the general rule to how words are going to affect His creations?

There is a bunch of powerful words used in human interactions that bonds or separates, does or undoes. Words like “I do”, or “I divorce you”, are stuck in my mind right now. I didn’t think that just by saying “I do” people automatically transfigure into the perfect couples. Just as I think that by saying “I divorce you” doesn’t dissolve a marriage.

But it does mark the beginnings and endings, doesn’t it?

One way or another, words are all that it takes to define the beginnings of beginnings, and the endings of ends. Words cannot dissolve hurts and disappointments, children and assets, memories and longing; but – boy – those things sure get fortified in multitudes with the more words spent on them. Imagine saying, “I’m a chicken” few hundred times a day, chances are that by the end of the month you’d be fainting in every Tazaj and Albaik restaurant where you see your relatives on your plate.

So the possible reason why some marriages don’t work is because some couples forget to repeat the words that they started their marriages with. “I love you as you are, and I’ll be with you till I die, whether you like it or not.”

What’s so sad is that, despite of its irreversible finality, and because they’re so filled with the sense of hollow, words of endings seem to echo more persistently than any other word every spoken or thought about. “I miss you. I’m sorry. I’m leaving. Goodbye.”

And the ultimate words of a conclusion:

The end.

Neighbor’s girl has been coming to our house every day for the past week.

Pardon my lack of posting. I have been disoriented.

Husband knows of my overly-suppressed bisexuality. So he makes the initiative to invite neighbor's girl over, you know, to use the computer and stuff. He actually enjoys seeing my disgruntled look over her presence; either I get her on the floor, or I throw her out of the nearest window.

Today, Neighbor’s girl took off her abaya and headdress as soon as she got into the house. At least today she’s not wearing a tank top to make it harder for me not to stare at those milky shoulders and arms and…cleeeeeavage.

Neighbor’s girl pulls a chair to sit beside me. She’s freaking just 20 cm away from me.

My stomach turns into a block of ice. Eyes glued on laptop’s screen, stylus furiously clicking from one embarrassing webpage to the next, and here’s this horny teenager subtly offering herself to me.

She leans from behind me and the alarms go off. I cussed quietly, “Damn bitch, this table is 180cm wide, and she couldn’t find a way to put the phone away without pressing those 34-C boobs on my head?”

She reaches to hug me. Quick! Brainstorm solutions to get me out of this!

a) I could hug her back, which definitely would lead into feeling her breasts, her ass and what’s between her legs. Then after an hour of that and some more, maybe we could feed Lay’s Potato Chips off each other’s nipples and stuff.

or

b) I could just gently move away from her hand, and keep all limbs and gazes limited to the handles of my computer chair. Definitely a more reasonable option.

Except that when I did option b), I almost slapped her arm raw, flipped her off the chair, and made me wish for an option c).

She notices my discomfort, but then totally blunders in figuring out why I’m so frigid in my chair. She squeals in that spoiled, seductive tone, “Hey, I’m so sorry that I’m bothering you like this,”

“Hey, don’t mention it. You’re sole purpose in my life is to take advantage of my kindness anyways. So, whatever.” Yeah, baby, throw the rotten eggs at me now!

Neighbor’s girl is taken aback from cold bluntness. She coos and whimpers, she packs her things, and is very glad that her brothers or boyfriend demand her to come back downstairs where all the genetically-no-brain-gifted people dwell.

I keep my limbs closely glued to my chair until I’m sure I can hear my fantasies walk away for another 24-hours break.

I take a deep sigh and get off my chair and walk away from the livingroom. I lucidly curse the husband for putting me through temptation, despite knowing how susceptible I am for sin. I thank Heavens for still make 'em like the neighbor's girl. If I make it like this without breaking my leash through Summer, I should get discounted mental therapy sessions for it.