On losing things twice

It's hard losing someone once. It's even harder losing someone twice.

The first one felt like you're suffocating, gasping for air. You thought you'd be dead. You thought your world would end.

The second one doesn't feel the same.

You've known better, so you don't worry that you're going to die or that the world would end. It only felt like a quick stab in the chest and then the pain went away.

But deep inside you felt nothing. Because in between the two losses, somehow you got nothing left of yourself.

Quick ranting

I sometimes can’t sleep at night and I feel unreal. Everything that I’ve been through, they don't feel like reality. I sometimes still see myself as a college student, walking down the campus hall. And then there will be flashing memories of me working as an editor. Riding Bajaj day-by-day to the office, doing coverage. It was just a year ago but it feels so far now, even further than the image of me as a college student.

I think my life changes too fast. Not that I don’t like it. I like it that I get to experience many things, places, roles with different people. But I’m afraid somehow along the way I lose myself. I want to have something to hold on to — a constant, just so I feel real again, just so I believe that I have always been myself, even in different circumstances.

Have you ever felt this way? Like having flashing memories of your life’s fragments, and suddenly feeling numb? I remember being passionate about my works, or being melancholy at night, but I feel like those versions of me are not me. They are separate entities in another dimension. And the me me, who is now writing this, is a completely different person.

Tell me what you think.

I once wrote a piece about how writing is therapeutic to me.

But it's funny how my finger feels numb at the moment my soul needs therapy the most.

Some words, you just can't spit out. Some feelings, you can't type.

All you can do is bottling it up. Go on with they day as if nothing happened. Write another content, acquire another user, find another traction channel--my daily job as community manager.

The tasks remain the same. But today, the background songs are different. There are more emo songs, followed by folk and jazz. Not the usual pop, EDM, or energizing R&B.

The foods are different. I didn't get up early to go to my favorite chicken porridge stall, nor I bought grilled chicken from my favorite Padang restaurant.

I just drank coffee, and more coffee, although I knew the acidity would hurt my stomach.

I kept telling myself I'm not sad and I'm not angry. But deep down there's another emotion, slowly killing me. It feels unreal. It makes me cry once every 3 hours. "But I'm not sad," I told myself over and over again.

It doesn't even hurt like it hurt when I failed a relationship. It doesn't even scare me like losing a job scared me. I don't know what it is.

I still have my energy, to type, to walk to the nearest ATM, to sing along with the Spotify playlist. But something is different. Something feels different.

My vision is blurred but I don't want to wear my glasses. The glasses make me feel ugly. The glasses do not help at all.

I take a look the mirror and think "I'm beautiful", with my black straight hair and soft, post-menstruation skin. But my soul is rotten, I told myself. My soul is rotten.

....

A Day in a Life of Someone with Scoliosis

The pain came again.

It started from my right hip, down my right leg. And it traveled up to my waist, back, and the worst--neck.

I started to feel my condition worsen since Tuesday evening, after I got back from organizing a meetup. Maybe it was the combination of pressure from work and bringing heavy x-banners up to 6th floor. And of course, sitting (slouching) for hours.

It's the feeling of helplessness--you don't know what to do. You try to move your body, try to get more comfortable. But the pain is there. You can use a hot patch, apply analgesic balm, but the relieving effect only lasts for 1 hour.

You do all the Yoga poses that the Internet say will give instant ease. And you wait, you wait until it goes away.

It's not just the physical pain. It's when I feel helpless my fucked-up mind starts to think of all my weaknesses, my messy relationships, the things I do wrong and shouldn't say to people.

This is the kind of pain that can make me cancel my plan, shut off myself from people, not replying to any text. This is also the kind of pain that can make me go shop impulsively--basically buy anything that can make me forget that my legs are uneven, for a while.

Call me spoiled and childish. But ever since this thing came 3 years ago, my life has never been the same.

At the hair salon where I got my hair cut today, I looked at myself in the mirror and I looked like shit. Honestly I cried a little bit. But there's no point in telling anyone. The second I whine about the pain to my parents they'll buy me a ticket home and stop me from having any full-time job ever.

After more than 70 dollars spent for my impulsive shopping today, I now feel a lot better. Although the neck pain is still there. I'm thinking of calling my old chiropractor and getting back on therapy.

I don't want to lose. I don't want to give up on all my dreams. I don't want to lose my sense of self just because my spine has abnormal curves.

I still want to go to Eurotrip someday, even though the tension might worsen from sitting too long on the flight.

Until then I can only do more planks and wear more hot patches and have chiropractic adjustment and hold on.

And probably ask my boss to buy a standing desk.

Falling in love is easy. Doing it the right way is not.