Maybe

Envying people's lives sounds so naive. I thought as I got my own share of finer things in life, I could stop the evil feeling and instead, letting them envy mine for once.

Everywhere I go, I see people living the life I want to have. Ironically, they had never thought of ever leading the life they're recently having.

Like since I was very young, I'd always wanted to live in a foreign country. I've always been thirsty for adventures and the thought of living in a new place where nobody knows my family tree has always excited me. At least I can wear anything I want without having anyone giving me funny looks for violating Eastern values, my ID card will no longer have religion field which has to be filled since agnotism is not acceptable, and more importantly, nobody dares to start a small talk by asking my marital status.

When my peers were still busy dealing with boyfriends with raging hormones and raging tempers, I had been busy updating my online CV on JobsDB Singapore hoping I could find a job there. If I could make it in Singapore, I thought it would be easy to make it anywhere in the world. Even New York. But it turned out I never did reply any vacancies found by the website, for I had found a job in the city where I was born and grew up.

Then came along foreign boyfriends. Perhaps I had never loved them anyway. I might have gone out with them and gone through long distance relationships just for the sake of getting a ticket out of my country. I did travel most of Asian continent, when my peers didn't go as far as Java island.

And now when I still work for the same company, my ID card is still written 'catholic' at the religion field, and people are still feeling sorry for my husbandlessness, my peers are now sailing the Seine on her birthday, expecting another child in Japan and Canada, looking out for a new apartment in Newcastle, furnishing a newly re-inovated kitchen in San Francisco, having a get-away weekend to Bordeaux, taking German lessons in Frankfurt, working with a top advertising agency in NYC, doing documentary films by day and bar hopping by night in DC.

However, it's not all flowers living abroad. Maybe they're the ones who envy me after all, for at the end of my relatively short travels, I have a home - a house in South Jakarta and good friends - to come home to where everything is familiar again. And when it comes to food, nothing beats Indonesian food in Indonesia, though there are plenty Indonesian restaurants all over the world.

Maybe.

Me Against The World

I actually hate to write about this subject. But since it still angers me, I need to pour it out into writing with the hope by the time I finish writing this, I will whatsoever feel better.

Now I know why people tend to avoid school reunions.

Firstly, it's nothing but showing off sessions where everybody wears their best outfit so at least your former classmates won't take you as a failure. Secondly, it's nothing but propaganda sessions in which people would preach, either by intimidatingly asking or vigorously making a long speech that everybody should lead such a predictable way of life: settling down by getting married and having kids.

Surrounded by girls who were holding a baby or two, and boys with girls who were wearing their rings, I happened to get stuck in a sort of reunion with my old classmates:

"So when are you catching up with the rest of us?" (Meaning: "When are you gonna get married?" was the kind of question I had seen it coming)

"I'm ... not sure if... but hey, I'm going to Turkey and Egypt next year. On company's expense!" I replied in an excited tone.

"Honey, that's great but your biological clock is ticking!"

I thought the kind of conversation I would only read in some typical chick-lit novels.

"I'm going to Turkey and Egypt! Isn't that a dream come true?" (Besides, the only Biology I know, I mean the subject, had stopped a long time ago)

"Don't you want to have someone who will take care of you like us, or maybe have a baby or two before your body won't allow you anymore?"

"This is Turkey and Egypt I'm talking about and I'm going there to write exclusively for my travel column,"

They all looked at me in puzzlement. Even the boys who I had expected more to not bring up such impolite questions didn't say anything to save me from being the prey of the girls having so-called perfect lives.

Thirdly, if may I add, nobody should bother to attend a school reunion at all, unless you come with extra baggage in the form of preferably a husband and kid(s). How boring!

Close To You

This conversation took place in a career wear section of a shopping mall:

I: "That clothing brand is designed by someone I know."

I know how the array of career women's clothes are mostly in dark, cold colors. It's either black, dark blue or grey. A few of them are white. Some are brown. Very few are pink, just for the sake of following the fashion trend.

I know how each article is not only inspired by Helmut Lang or Donna Karan, but also by Japanese kimono. He names each of his design after a Japanese porn star, since he's very fond of Japanese porns, Japanese girls, Japanese cultures, Japanese food, and everything else Japanese. I think that's also why his designs' sizes are relatively small, for I have no choice but wear size 14 of his piece.

A friend: "Oh really?"

I: "Someone I know quite intimately."

(silence)

I: "Someone I could really fall for ... efforlessly. I don't understand why those who win a heart without having to do anything will break it so casually?"

A friend: "Isn't he gay? I mean, being a fashion designer is usually ... you know!"

I: "He's so straight that it hurts each time I know he is everything but a homosexual."


Then I couldn't help but try on a black kimono-like shirt, which turned out to perfectly fit on me that my friend convinced me to take it no matter what. I was, of course, torn between wanting to have a piece of him in the form of his work and hold any unimportant expenses.

However, the urge to have him (ehm!) was stronger than the urge to be financially wise. It felt like a victory paying for his work. Not because it was quite expensive - even after getting 20% off - but it actually seemed like buying his affection, which in real life I don't ever get anywhere near it. Arriving home, I couldn't get the black shirt off my eyes. I hung it next to my bed so I could keep looking at it, like so many times before I had been bedazzled by looking at him or by simply speaking his name. Before I went to bed that night, I held it close to my chest as fantasizing it was him I had in my arms.

Yes, it was so pathetic, I know.