When I was in the car with Danang, something led us to talk about how we used to be twenty years ago. I remembered talking to my elementary school friends during the break about how it would've been in the year 2000: we'd have been teenagers, that's for sure, but most importantly, there would've been hovering cars, robots, and advanced technology.
It's year 2011 now and from my point of view, we are advancing in some fields, and yet destroying ourselves in many.
Then again, I'm not here to blog about the world in general, so I digress. I'm here to blog about the many moments of my life. After all, I'm *coughing hysterically* years old, so that means I have enough things to cherish, ponder about, and perhaps regret, although a bit. I know, when it comes to regret, even the bad things I've done or have had, have contributed to who/what/where I am right now. However, I can't lie that I do have some regrets of my own.
I remember measuring my height and comparing it with my parents. I used to be shorter than Mom, then I outgrew her and was shorter than Dad, then I outgrew both of them.
I remember painting my whole body with red paint (the kind of paint to use on walls) and my Mom had to scrub my skin so hard with turpentine. I cried the whole time.
I remember crying and being hugged by Mom so tight after an awful Sunday mass where the priest said that homosexuals would go to hell.
I remember going home after a hell trip in England (it was a homestay program and I went without Mom. I was bullied during the whole two weeks, including by my own fellow Indonesians) when I was twelve years old. I was ill for the last seven days and almost got hit by one of London's black taxis. In an assignment, I was asked how I would describe the best way to die (again, I was twelve years old) and I wrote: dying while being hugged by a loved one. In the car on the way home from the airport, Mom cradled my feverish body. I cried silently.
I remember losing a kitten I just met. A very, very peculiar kitten: black and white, with a face that resembled another cat I had lost before that. I called the first cat I had lost Mimi, and because of the new kitten's resemblance to the first Mimi, I also called the new kitten Mimi. Mimi II was so shy but I could finally convince her to come from time to time to eat. One night, I saw Mimi II perched on top of our brick fence. When I approached her, she was so passive, which was very much unlike our previous encounters. I then realized she was very ill. She died in my arms in less than an hour. She had just been sitting there on the brick wall. If she had been that ill, how did she get up there? Had she been waiting for me? I cried violently that night. It was two days before Christmas eve. At church, during the Christmas eve mass, I cried again. Later I found out that Mimi means bitter in Hebrew.
It seems like all my life, I've been crying a lot. Perhaps it's true, and the tears that I last shed won't be the last. It seems like I remember all the negative events in my life - all the events that make me cry. That's true, but that doesn't make me a sad or negative person. I love life. It's just that I have received so much joy and happiness, that I've lost track and gave up counting my blessings long ago. Meanwhile, I can still count the heartbreaks and the laments.
I'm keeping these sadness close to my heart, to remind me that even the smallest drop of joy can ease the suffering of being human, of knowing that someday, time will outrun me, like I've outgrown my parents.
Although I know that someday, if I'm good, I'll die the way I want, have true friends who will wait for me until their dying breaths and let me do the same unconditionally.
It may not be like this forever. But I'm ready to cry, and hopefully ready to move on afterwards.
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