Clueless
So I’m not really good at celebrating life. Not that I don’t, it’s just my brain has its own ways of convincing me that I don’t deserve celebration.
Okay, I understand that it’s quite hard to process.. Let us start small.
I distinctively remember a moment in my high school. Maybe it was in a 12th grade class or 11th, I cannot seem to remember that detail. It was a counseling guidance period. As it was our last years in high school, the teacher asked each of us to imagine and share to the whole class what our life would be 10 years from now.
Some girls voluntarily shared, some kinda not ready yet, but almost all of them answered with such conviction. They describe their career, which is inline with what they decided to study in uni; also having a partner with numbers of children. It feels like everyone already mapped out their future in a concrete way, step by step.
After almost all the girls shared their imagined-future, I still couldn’t find the answer myself. By the time it was my turn, all that came out of my mouth was : I don’t know what my career will be, I just know that I will have a job in one of those big building, I’ll work 8–5, and at the end of the week I will have time with my group of friends to hang out and drink beer.
I realize the answer got a weird reaction. My face was all hot when the class moved on to the next girl. Then of course I took that moment home seriously, I was starting to contemplate what it is that I want to be in life. Was I not going through the same process as every other girl in my class, hell even the whole school. Because everyone else seems to have the ‘correct’ answer. But why didn’t I?
It’s not that I don’t have the desire to be something at all, in fact I wanted to be a lot of things. I wanted to be a president at one point in high school. Then I wanted to be a teacher, a math teacher specifically, since I love math I was even good at it. Then I wanted to be a writer. Maybe because I wanted to do a lot of things, I couldn’t muster the step by step to get there. Therefore I couldn’t imagine what my twenty-something-me would be. To be honest that moment imprinted something in my brain, that I am a failure since I didn’t have the map to navigate my life.
But then life goes on. There were choices I made with tiny points as direction, not as big as 10 years ahead, not even one year. Which, to fast-forward, lead me to this life.. Thirty-something-deedee.
I am in no way denying the privilege and luck I have by going through life without some sense of direction and ended up with so much to be grateful for. But I also know by now that those little choices I took are small courage stacked on top of another, and I can honestly say I have been living the life I built, not a life built on people’s expectation (at least not all parts of it). With helping hands here and there, for sure.
Then I came across a post of an Eileen Gu interview. She’s a decorated olympian freestyle skier. She said something like : being able to become the person her 8-year-old self would revere is “the biggest flex of all time”. Which is such a thought-provoking and intelligent statement.
And it got me thinking about my younger-self. Would she revere the person I am?
That led me to dissect the young-deedee.
So here it is :
For as long as I can remember, I was such a scared little girl. Whenever we have family trips to the beach, riding a boat in the ocean, visiting a cave where bats live, even to seaworld, there were always pictures of me hanging on my dear life to my mom. Pictures of me crying… not rare, I tell you.
Then came the greatest Indonesian cinema has produced (that I first encountered) : Petualangan Sherina. As a child, the heroine had a big influence on me. I started to pack smarties in my lunch box, I stuck band-aids on the tiniest scar just so I could wear band-aids. I know every dialog in that movie without fail. I can even get a close enough impression on each dialog.
In my young mind, that is the closest I can get to be like Sherina. because brave was never something you’d describe young-deedee. Let alone being adventurous.
And came my second encounter with Indonesian cinema masterpiece : Ada Apa dengan Cinta?
I was still in my elementary years. Boy did those two movies shaped a generation. A group of girls in the neighborhood and I used to reenact AADC when we got together. I was always Milly. the silly-innocent girl of the group. And I did Milly pretty well, I must say. Because I was Milly. But I wanted to be Cinta so bad, outside the reenactment. I wanted to have the ability to put odd words together that I can feel, or people can feel. I wanted to have a Rangga, a boy that also has the same language and once in a while puts together odd words about me.
I started writing poems in junior high, or prose, or anything. I was writing for me, myself and I.
The next thing was, I encountered Pramoedya Anantoer, through my big brother. When I was still in junior high. But, man, that guy seems to know his way around simple words building strong emotional engagement to the readers. Because he did it to me. I was mesmerized by the power of story telling. Also he put a poison so strong in my heart with his words that made me fall in love with Indonesia. I wanted to be able to tell stories so strong and make an impact like he did.
And between those encounters, I just was a sporty girl. I liked movements. I like physical challenges.
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Honestly, those sound like a very confusing group of people.. in one girl.
Young-deedee was so easily influenced. Thank God she didn’t grow up at this time of age. Can you imagine? She’d be all over the place. So I think a shout out to anyone growing up at this time of age and not being all over the place is so underrated. Cheers to you young people in 2026.
Whoa, got a little side-track there.
Anyway, after dissecting young-deedee and seeing where she is today… Turns out she didn’t change as much.
She still is that scared little girl, well woman now tho. She gets scared, most of the time, but she’s doing it anyway.
She still is one hella Sherina-impostor who wants a life of adventure. She is literally doing adventure for a living.
She still is obsessed with the power of words, even more so.. This thing you read is one example. It’s one of the ways of her making sense of who she is and what the world around her is.
She is still doing movements since it feels therapeutic, or just something that her body used to. Believe you me, that one period in her life where she wasn’t moving as much or getting out more often, she got major depression, yo.
She still wants to impart her experience and knowledge. It’s not math tho. It’s just a different thing with different kinds of classrooms.
And without so much a map or any navigation system at all, she ended up doing all of it.
And to answer the question of this whole writing…
I wouldn’t know if young-deedee would revere me. But I know for sure she still recognized me. and maybe, just maybe, she’d be fascinated.
Oh and for the young girl who craved a Rangga, she found something else..
She found a boy who didn’t understand song lyrics, but saw her just as is.
So no, young-deedee, there’s no you and the love of your life quoting the same line like “bukan maksudku berbagi nasib. nasib adalah kesunyian masing-masing”.
But you get, the guy who watches Ada Apa dengan Cinta? halfway, and called you out on stealing Cinta’s personality. Embarrassing of course, but somewhat weirdly warm.
Though we don’t share the same language, to be seen is the most poetic kinda love for me.
Yes, maybe I’m still not very good at celebrating life.
There has not been a 10-years-map yet.
I’m still figuring things out as I go along.
But apparently, I have accumulated 33 years of evidence that I quite like being here.
So cheers to that!
