little me, in a big world
life is prettier than it may seem
This time, I’m committed to actually writing this. I’ve postponed it for 3 months, since the day I turned 20. Redrafted, retitled, rewrite, over and over again, because I seem to have lost much within myself. I cannot put my hand on the things that are bothering me, the worldly worries, the whirling thoughts keeping me up at night. For the first time in a very long time, I’m at loss for words, and I thought I was meant to be good at them.
That being said, recently I feel like I have become bad at things that I was supposed to be good at. I went back to Singapore recently to see my houseparent, and to visit the boarding house. I told him that my trip home this time was almost like a lifeline. For the first time since I left Jakarta 5 years ago, I needed to go home. I needed that sense of familiarity and the safety net that I can fall back to.
The second term of second year was unnecessarily tough. I left the university newspaper that I loved, after crying over it every single day for 3 weeks (it just sounds silly to write about it now, but I choose not to invalidate the fact that it was a hard time). I had loved the magazine I was working in, and dedicated everything I had in me that wasn’t already taken up by my studies and my part-time job to it. The universe had other plans, however, and it didn’t work out.
While I was in the process of deciding on whether or not I wanted to leave, I found myself in a dilemma between the things I wanted to achieve and the values that I hold dear. The issue at hand, at that time, was related to the way we approach and celebrate DEIJ aspects of the university. I have done DEI work for such a long time, dating back to all the way when I was in UWC. I could have not said anything and kept my position, but I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.
It was during this time that I stumbled onto Lana Bastašić’s Instagram post. One of the slides gave me the insight I needed;
I do not know what literature means to you outside of networking and grants. To me it means, first and foremost, an unwavering love for human beings and the sanctity of human life […] Perhaps to you literary works are divorced from real life, but then again you have probably never known war first hand.
I thought, this was it. This was my answer. My art and my work must never be divorced from real life. Whatever it is that I do, I have never once done them purely to have something nice and pretty on my CV. Not this blog, not when I was running around fundraising for solar panels, not my summer job, and not the newspaper. So at this moment, when I started feeling disconnected from my work because it starts to stray from my values, I decided to leave. It took me countless of conversations with my friends, 7 drafts of my resignation letter, and weeks of just crying. I loved the newspaper. I loved the magazine. But it no longer felt right, and it was making me miserable more than it made me happy.
There is a tumblr post that says that ‘It’s okay that you’re not who you thought you would be’. I cried for a long time, on my birthday, over this. I feel like I have spent years trying to be extraordinary. I did an inhuman amount of extracurriculars, climb up leadership ladders, study for hours every day to be a top student. I was scared of ordinariness. I had dreamed of an accomplished life; summer internships, big organisations, leaving my mark in university. When I turned 20, I fell into a scary hole of insecurities. For not doing enough, for not having enough in my CV to compete in the job market, for not getting high enough grades, for not having already set up an NGO that saved the world (okay, this is a joke, but you know what I mean?). Instead, I left my extracurriculars one by one. I spend my weekends at home, trying to catch up to a reading goal I have fallen behind from. I turn off my Messenger notifications, and my friendships fade away.
I was almost unreachable when I went back home to Jakarta. 20 brought with it an overwhelming sense of being left behind, but this time, the burnout finally caught up with me. I don’t want to run anymore, at least not now. I want to learn a new language. I want to read books, without interruptions. I want to go to my part time job, clock out at 12pm and cook dinner at home, spend an uneventful, quiet evening with my flatmates. I let the ordinariness I feared so much finally catch up with me, and find that I do not hate it half as much. In Jakarta, I promised myself that I would be present, and it felt so good, and I felt happy and light. I still feel small in the face of the world, but I feel big within myself. I would not trade that feeling with anything.
The past year (of being 19) has been so heavy. Walking around carrying the invisible weight of my grief is hard, and I struggle to put together a version of me who was organised, on top of stuff, and achieved a lot of things next to this version of me — a recovering perfectionist finally coming down from the high of being an overachiever. My calendar is empty for the first time in years. I looked for the disappointment in myself, but instead, I only found relief.
I don’t know where 20 will take me, or what it has in store. But I hope whatever happens in the world, it will not take me away from my value, and what I believe to be right. There is much of myself that I still need to discover, and I will continue shedding my skin and finding versions of myself I never thought I would be — and that’s okay. I just have to trust that life, turns out, is prettier than it may seem. With patience, it will come.
I wrote this in 3 months, so of course my focus at the start and at the end has changed (and the title has also changed like… 20 times). Bear with me. I realise that this post will never be completed until I finally find the peace I have frantically been looking for. I am not quite there yet, but I’m closer than I was in March. But that is it - my writing should never be divorced from real life. I can only write about darkness in the dark, but one day, I know I will find the light. I have to be honest to be able to write. I have to look at that darkness right in the eye. If I do that, I’m sure the light will find me again.
I wish you all a summer full of light, and love.
My dear, you’ve captured the anguish and all the big big feelings associated with not living up to our idealised versions of who we want to be in this world— trust me, it is not an entirely unique feelings as most days, I feel as though that 17-year-old me from Singapore would also be disappointed by all that I had not managed to accomplish since then. But in some ways, I’m glad that my actions are no longer tethered to excellence, my life which has grown quieter and less grand than how it used to be in UWC, feels gentler, kinder even. I have a greater capacity for tenderness, to be fully present for my loved ones. Wherever you are, know that your experiences still manage to find resonance within my own, that we are all continually learning to cope with adulting. Sending warm hugs your way🥰
ayasha, when i got your letter and read 'life is prettier than it may seem' i SWEAR you took me on a spiral! i couldn't remember where that line was from until i stopped everything i was doing just to find it. and that one tumblr post also hits me like a punch in the gut every time too, there's a raw human aspect to it.
"i was scared or ordinariness" but how ironic is it that our work here is tied to life, in its simplest form and shapes? you're right, our work can't fully be divorced from our lives, even when we'd like it to. not that i think we can only write about what we know, but we do need somewhere to start. i saw so much of myself when i was 19 in this letter, i had never felt so powerless and small as i did when i was that age, going to university hoping from the bottom of my soul that i was doing "the right thing". we push ourselves too much for dreams that are given to us before we can make sense of them on our own
this letter reminded me a lot of taylor swift's "happiness", when she mentions 'leave it all behind, and there is happiness', or 'i haven't met the new me yet'. i hope you can find comfort in life again after all the anguish!