Je Ne Sais Quo

Finite, a concept that is often forgotten although it applies to everything related to us human. An opened carton of your favourite milk, your red lipstick that always gives you enough confidence to conquer the day, that one doll you always slept with throughout your childhood, those will expire, eventually. Although some of them have more sentimental value than others, those are still just, you know, things. Stuffs. You can purchase the same kind again or have it framed and hanged in your wall for sentimental forsaken.

As a human, our days are numbered as well and it has been unspoken secret that we will die someday and leave everything and everyone behind. Sure, it is sad, but you will move on because you just cannot do anything about it anyway.

Then, what about time?

By time, I mean timeframe in relationship. Some relationships last longer than other, and if we are lucky, some relationships will last until forever. Some will just end, mostly because of ugly fights causing ugly break ups. I think the saddest part is when you just drift apart and all you can see when you look back are the bridges you have separately crossed and you don’t even know how to start fixing it. I think we are just too occupied with our own world that we don’t realize all of our relationships are finite.

Mono no Aware: or “the sadness or pathos of things”.  It refers to the bittersweet feeling of seeing things change, the act of watching time pass, as if from the outside looking in. It is, as Sei Shonagon said in the 10^th century, “when one has stopped loving somebody, [and] one feels that he has become someone else, even though he is still the same person.” The diminutive pain that accompanies a flower when it withers, and the finite nature of everything.

People see the finite concept as a chance to not take anything for granted and to maximize the time that we have while it is still a thing. On the other hand, being finite is sometimes what makes it beautiful because we tend to appreciate things that are limited in time, in presence, in beings. What saddens us is sometimes, we do not really know when will it end. We go along feeling that we still have a lot of times while in fact, we can lose someone in just a blink of an eye.

You often see the saying ‘lover is temporary, bestfriend and family are forever’. You will also read about your spouse being your partner in life (and death, according to some beliefs). It is sometimes funny how we act like we know we are in this for life so there’s no way we will ever separate, but it just happens because even though we are not changing, things change. You can try put a bandage on the relationship, you can try to recite or renew the commitment, but what happens if someday you wake up and you just know you do not love that person anymore? What happens if the one you tell stories everyday, you just forget to talk to for a week? What happens if you know a person throughout your whole life suddenly become someone you do not even recognize?

These things happen more often than you might know.

I think the point of all this is to really be present – even in things and relationships that you are sure you would not be losing. Our days are numbered. The thing that I have been trying recently is to tell my mom and/or my bestfriend things first before I post it in social media – if at the end I still want to post it. How much more important is it to be really present — in the now — than to pour frivolous information from a screen through your eyeballs into your brain? 

I want to stop wondering what did I do wrong to cause losing a friend of mine everytime I see their pictures or their posts, instead I am being more active by asking another friend of mine if their posts reek of sadness. I need to stop dwelling on things that are over and start really being present – because who knows what might happen, right?

This post is dedicated to you.

You, a boy who has to lie to his parents about why you don’t seem to have girlfriend all this time. Who has to smile awkwardly whenever your cousins set you up with women from their offices, college, any place they can think of. A girl who has to sit tight and look pretty when your mother begins the talk is it because of what dad did to mom making you prefer woman instead? a right treatment can cure you, baby, you just have to open up to the possibilities. I want a grandchild. 

You, whose parents are we do not have problems with other people who are LGBTQ+ until our child is one of them.

You, who are born and raised in a religious family but just do not find the salvation and same dedication towards your religion. The more they enforce you, the more you distance yourself because you understand, religion is not something you do because you are afraid of your mom punishing you because you don’t pray; religion is something you do because you trust and you believe. and it takes time to process everything. You, who envy people who seem to have stronger faith towards their religion while you still have some questions and thoughts about it because you think God has spoken but what we hear is His interpreter, and He has a lot of it. 

You, who often ask yourself is it wrong to feel what I feel? am I wrong for being real? am I wrong to feel this? am I wrong to actually have feelings?

You, who feel like this world is not your world. You, who feel lost sometimes – or most of the times. Who feel like you should not be doing what you do now, who hate your own job, college, school, you who hate your own face, your body, your skin. You, who hate your economic status. You, who just feel misplaced.

This post is dedicated to all of you who are happy and unhappy. To you who have life all figured out, and who hope you can just delete everything and start over. I just want to say that everyone has this kind of downtime. Some may have it longer than others, but even the richest person in the world don’t have it all. We won’t have life figured out as told by those self-help books, you know, because

We won’t have it all. Yes, there, I said it.

Because we are not meant to have it all. What we can do is try our best because effort won’t betray. We are not meant to have it all because we are created in pairs – we complete each other. That is why we have friends, spouse, family, even official help – because you are never alone if you just look in the right space.

However, before all of that, you know, in order to make people love you, you have to love yourself first, because I think that is the biggest love of all. Why not? You are the person who understand you the most, who know what can make you happy. Screw those fuckbois and ditch those bitches who mess with your feeling and make you feel like you are not worth to be loved – it is them, not you. Work and study hard so you can live by yourself and bid adieu to your family, but don’t forget to check up on them occasionally because most of the times, blood is thicker than water. Save enough money to move somewhere and start over, or retake your undergraduate study with different major – the one you actually like, the point is – starting from now, please prioritize yourself among everything and everyone else. 

If you love something, you’d do anything to let them live and happy, right? Let’s fall in love with ourselves first, the rest of the world can wait.