Suddenly, Medium (?)
April 16, 2026. Day 1 of beginning my Medium Journey. Not for any grand reason, not for any particular audience.
A small corner to romanticize the ordinary days and the stray thoughts that show up without knocking. So here I am, sitting alone in the corridor of my office building, watching the city outside do what it always does. Jakarta at 6:30 PM is a specific kind of chaos. The traffic right now makes no sense, but I know that if I wait until around 8, the road home will be quiet and kind. So I wait.
My phone keeps me company. The usual scroll through social media, nothing really catching my eye, just noise filling the space between me and my own thoughts. I normally spend this post-work hour at the gym, almost like a daily ritual. But tonight the motivation isn’t there, and I’ve learned not to force things that refuse to come on their own.
By the way, I took a photo. I’ve been mildly obsessed with Dazzcam lately, the paid version, though I’m still figuring it out. Still guessing whether the warm grain I picked was an actual creative choice or just a lucky accident. The photo I took tonight is nothing remarkable: corridor pillars, amber wall lamps, green shrubs catching the light, and trees blurring into the dark somewhere behind parked cars. I don’t fully know why I took it. The scene in front of me just felt worth keeping, and there’s something about shooting on Dazzcam that slows you down enough to pull you out of your own head, even if only for a few minutes.
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My head, honestly, has been loud lately. Things from the past keep finding their way back, showing up at 6:47 PM in a quiet corridor when I least expect them. Grief and old wounds seem to run on their own schedule, untouched by how much time has passed. I won’t spell out what those things are. Some things are better left between you and God. What I do, when it gets heavy, is quietly say “Ya Jabbar” in my heart. Al-Jabbar, the One who mends what is broken. It isn’t a fix. It’s more like a small breath, a reminder that whatever feels fractured inside me isn’t mine alone to carry.
There’s a line from Tere Liye’s novel: Janji, that keeps sitting with me. The book talks about promises, but really it’s about the quiet commitments we make to our own becoming. That the most important promise isn’t always the one you make to other people. Sometimes it’s the one you whisper to yourself on an unremarkable night: to keep going, to keep showing up, even when the traffic is unbearable and your chest carries a weight you can’t quite name.
Tonight I made a small one. I downloaded an app and I wrote something. It doesn’t have to be brilliant. It just has to be honest.
And maybe that’s enough for a night like this.
So, how are you? What have you promised yourself, to enjoy this life, even just a little, every single day?
