Originally published at Surrounded by Heads and Bodies

When I was a kid, I dreamed of being Spider-Man. I admired him because he could swing between skyscrapers and save so many people. I thought it was such a cool thing, being able to just swing over to my friend’s house! Having tons of fans and inspiring kids everywhere, all without anyone even knowing who I really am. What a happy life to have.

I walked out of the cinema after watching Spider-Man: Brand New Day with a bit of an existential crisis. I’ve always loved Spider-Man, but this movie hit me so much harder than I expected. It felt way more personal. It reminded me of the Peter Parker I knew back when I was a kid. The difference is, back then I couldn’t relate to what Peter was feeling, I was just dazzled by how cool the action was.

I remember watching the previous three Tom Holland Spider-Man movies with different people each time. Friends, crush, lover, you name it. And yesterday I watched Brand New Day alone. Somewhere between Homecoming and Brand New Day, I grew up and became Peter Parker. Lost people I love, got my heart broken, questioned myself, moved to a new place, fell apart, and felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.

This movie wasn’t really about superheroes.

After losing Aunt May to such immense grief, Peter still has to lose his lover and best friend too. And that’s not the loneliest part. He’s the only one who remembers everything they went through together. It broke my heart when MJ looks Peter in the eyes and tells him that she doesn’t love him. She’s not lying. She just can’t remember what they did together. Same goes when Peter meets Ned. Can you imagine having someone who knows you inside and out, someone who just gets you without you having to say a word, someone who knows your biggest dream before life slowly changed you? Now imagine them standing right in front of you, looking at you like you’re a stranger they’ve never met. I’m afraid there’s no lonelier feeling than that.

So, Peter, if everyone loses all their memories about you, do you still remain yourself?

One of my favorite lines in the movie is when Peter asks, “Who are you?”, and Jean Grey replies, “Do you know who you are?” I feel like that line says a lot about what Peter is struggling with at that moment. He’s trying to stay in control while something dark tries to take over his body. Trauma is starting to haunt him again. And isn’t that all of us too?

This movie never tells us Peter is fighting his darker side. It shows us. It shows us how to start our life over again, even without the people we love.

Watching Brand New Day reminded me again what it feels like to outgrow places. I think we all experience this as we grow through adulthood. Life changes before we’re ready, and it keeps moving whether we’re ready or not. And one day, we start mourning the versions of ourselves we used to be.

Maybe that’s why I feel connected to Peter Parker. He’s scared. He’s broke. He makes mistakes. He feels completely alone. He learns to let go even when his heart never wants to. He has every reason to stop. Nobody remembers him. Nobody remembers what he’d sacrificed and everything he’d lost. But he doesn’t stop.

He keeps choosing kindness, responsibility, and to save people. He never stops trying to do the right thing. He still chooses to be a better person. Peter knows he’s a hero, but as Tom Holland said, the bravest thing Peter can do in life is ask for help. When he neglects his human side and his community, it has a really crazy effect on him personally. And even in the times when he’s most alone, there’s always gonna be someone he can turn to, someone he can lean on and ask for help.

That’s why Spider-Man is my favorite. He’s the most human. Even if life takes everything from you and leaves you standing alone, it doesn’t take away your chance to begin again. You might never have thought you’d be able to do any of the stuff Peter does. But you can. Anyone can wear the mask. You can wear the mask. ’Cause every day is a brand new day.

Peter Parker was never fictional, he was always meant to be like us was originally published in Journal Kita on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published at Surrounded by Heads and Bodies

I heard someone call my name. I froze when I saw who it was. No matter how hard I searched my head, I still couldn’t recognize this person. But he knew my name, so he had to know me- which meant I should know him too! Then, stupidly, I asked, ‘Who are you?’

He was an old friend from college. We were in the same batch, and in our batch it was almost impossible not to know him, since he was one of the “icons.” So why couldn’t I recognize him? At first I thought I’d simply forgotten because his appearance had changed a little.

Until I realized there were a lot of things from that period I couldn’t remember.

As far as I remember, my college years should have been full of fun memories. My first time living far from home. Trying a lot of new things alone that I’d never done before. Only a little of it still sticks in my head now. I tried to find out the cause, to understand it. Some people said it could be a trauma response. Because I’d learned to shut out, shut down, certain memories to protect myself. It’s not because I wasn’t living fully, but because survival mode steals your presence. Honestly, this realization breaks my heart.

And yet I often say that I fear forgetting more than being forgotten. The truth is, memory defines who we are. We are something made from the memories we loved and hated. So, when it begins to fade, do I still remain myself?

Now, I treat everything as a journal. It’s my act of resistance against disappearing. Every day, I write what happened that day into a sentence or paragraph. I upload photos and videos to my social media so they become eternal digital documentation. I make special notes to record interesting ideas I find each week. So if my mind stops storing memories anymore, I can unpack them by looking at every trace I’ve left behind.

When I go back and talk to people who were close to me during that “lost” time, slowly, my memories start coming back. They help me unlock the stardust in my body that’s still holding on to them. Maybe they never asked to be remembered, but they just found their way to me anyway. These people I loved carry them too, and help me heal and process what I’ve been through.

Perhaps, memories are never much different from love. Because what is loving then, if not remembering? When you’re in love, you remember the tiniest part of someone other people often miss. That’s why the fear of forgetting arises when you love something, because remembering isn’t always sweet, but it’s always love. It’s an act of love.

And that’s reason enough why I don’t fear death simply for being forgotten. I fear it because it becomes the last moment I’ll ever remember. That’s why I’m still here, because I want to remember every single thing, every moment, every experience, and every feeling that makes me human.

I can’t remember some years of my life was originally published in Journal Kita on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published at Surrounded by Heads and Bodies

It’s 7:00 PM in Jakarta. I spoke with my mom on the phone and she questioned my consideration of buying a house. I just said that I don’t think about it yet. Besides, land prices aren’t as low as they used to be. But that was just an answer to stop my mom from asking further.

It has been 2 years since I have lived alone here, far from my hometown. And speaking about home, to be honest, I don’t have an answer for my mom’s question. I know that most people who feel settled in their life will consider staying and putting down roots, which leads them to think about buying a house. Meanwhile, the concept of living in the same place my whole life and calling it home never crossed my mind.

I spent more than half my life living in a small city with limited access to a lot of things. So, the urge to get out of a place that makes me feel stuck has always been there in my life.

New places force you to relearn everything

When I first left home, life forced me to relearn everything I had. 18 years of growing up living in the same place, and I needed to outgrow my comfort zone. My adaptability as a human being was really put to the test when I lived alone in an unfamiliar place.

Starting from something as simple as buying food. Growing up, I never had to think about it. The fridge at home was never empty, and if it was, someone else would go fill it before I even noticed. When I moved out, most days I just bought food instead. The first time I went to buy groceries alone, I stood there holding a bag of rice, and I genuinely didn’t know if the price was cheap or expensive. Eighteen years, and I had never once needed to know that. I bought it anyway. It’s such a small thing, but it made me realize how much I didn’t know about taking care of myself.

Maybe that’s why food is always the first thing we ask each other about after a trip. When my friend came back from Japan, the first thing I asked wasn’t about what they saw; it was what they ate. Food is the first test. Before you learn anything else about a place, you have to learn how to feed yourself in it.

See a lot of different versions of ‘normal’

Ever since I moved away, I rarely go back home. Every time I do, I feel like something has changed. If before I used to feel weird when someone did something ‘not normal’ according to local culture, now I tend to judge less. Maybe before, I was someone who felt that what I believed was always right because I was surrounded by a majority of people who believed the same thing. But when I became the only person who believed that, I realized that every place or person has its own version of normal.

I used to think one big move was enough. That I’d learned the lesson. I’d go somewhere new once, feel the discomfort, come out the other side less judgmental, and carry that with me for good. But it isn’t just a one-time lesson. It’s not a single door I walk through and I’m changed forever. Every place I haven’t been yet is still holding a version of normal I don’t even know exists. So why would I assume I’m finished after just one?

But if everywhere has its own way, and I keep collecting more of them, I started wondering: how much of ‘me’ is actually just wherever I happened to be standing?

Am I me through geography?

This existential question about identity and how much the environment shapes it often turns into insecurities for me. People’s views and the labels they unconsciously put on me because I come from a small city on an island most people only know through rumors or stories that were never quite accurate to begin with. Sometimes it makes me wonder whether who I am is defined by where I am from.

The people differences I mentioned earlier often come from conflicting values, and a value can be tied to a location. So the question is whether someone’s beliefs and values are based on culture.

Instead of believing that someone’s identity is determined by the place they live in or the culture around them, I prefer to believe that it’s determined more by how we respond to that environment. Everyone always has different experiences even if they come from the same place. That’s what actually shapes us to be human beings.

My mom is still on the phone, waiting for an answer about the house. I still don’t have one. Not because I haven’t thought about it; I think about little else. It’s that saying yes feels like saying I’m done. Done finding out what else normal could look like. Done letting a place decide who I am. And I’m not ready to close that door yet.

But she said that she always believes in whatever I’m fighting for and searching for answers to. It’s my own life, and I get to choose my own path. Even so, behind me, there will always be a place to lean on and hands that are always open whenever I remember to come home.

Am I me through geography? was originally published in Journal Kita on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published at Surrounded by Heads and Bodies

I stare at my phone in my hand a little too long. I typed, “Did you get home safe?” but my thumb only hovers over the screen. I’m waiting for some version of me to press send. I read the message once again and suddenly it feels too obvious, too interested, too much. I delete the whole thing letter by letter. The empty text box stares back at me clean and safe. Then I lock my phone as if nothing happened and put it face down beside me, as if I am hiding evidence of something embarrassing.

That’s the best thing I’ve been doing lately. Realizing there is something soft inside myself then quietly killing it before it gets the chance to breathe.

People often call me a hopeless romantic. Wait, how do they know? I still believe in little things. I still believe in eye contact that lasts one second too long. In remembering small details about people for no reason other than wanting to keep pieces of them.

I notice people.

I notice the way they laugh differently when they are comfortable. I notice the music group they listen to and never bring up again. I notice the words they use when they are annoyed, when they are curious, when they are pretending to be interested in the conversation. I keep tiny things people forget they ever gave me and I still feel everything.

The problem is, would I let it become anything? It’s not that I don’t know what I want. I think I do. I think I have always known. Some part of me reaches for people while another part is already pulling away. I want closeness, but I have become good at leaving before anything gets close enough to matter. Maybe because if something never becomes real, then it never gets the chance to hurt me.

Somewhere before this, I learned that loving something completely doesn’t mean it stays. I learned that things don’t always break loudly. Sometimes they leave quietly, politely, almost gently. Sometimes the world doesn’t end all at once. Sometimes it just becomes smaller when you aren’t looking. Since then, I have trusted a lot of things, but no longer trust my own heart when it starts to hope.

So now, the moment something starts to feel beautiful, I tend to step back before it becomes a disaster. I become cautious. Slightly hard to read. It is precisely because I know how badly I want it. Wanting has a way of turning my heart into a vulnerable place, and I have seen what happens when I let myself stay there too long.

How do you stay a hopeless romantic when hope is the very thing that once broke you? How do you keep your heart open to the world after it has learned how easily things can be damaged? I still reach out to people even though I’m afraid none of this is going anywhere.

Maybe I am still learning that with all these walls I built, there is still a window somewhere inside me that never stays fully shut.

Built my walls so high no one can get in, but now I can’t get out either was originally published in Journal Kita on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This past year has felt heavy. Not just for me, but for so many people around me. There is a certain exhaustion in the air lately. You can hear it in conversations, see it in headlines, and feel it in the way people worry about the future.

As I write this, protests are happening outside over economic policy. It feels like everyone is carrying something. Maybe that’s why reflection matters. Not because life is easy, but because it isn’t. So, here are my 28 things for 28.

1. One thing at a time instead of everything all at once.
2. We seem pretty hopeful for a country so corrupted.
3. Sometimes you just have to find meaning in things that seem meaningless.
4. One step backwards is also part of the dance.
5. Your death will come on an ordinary day, in the middle of unfinished plans, and the world will continue without you. So live a little.
6. Challenge yourself. Because if you don’t, life will. What a privilege to be challenged by a life you created on purpose.
7. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you thought they would. That’s okay. Everything is a win when the goal is to experience.
8. Surround yourself with people who help you achieve your goals, not change them. Your choice of them is a reflection of how much you respect yourself.
9. Peace will cost you so many people.
10. Happiness is your current situation minus expectations.
11. “Almost” is a strange kind of loss because nothing really ended and nothing really began.
12. The older I get, the more I realize that life changes less when circumstances change and more when perspective does.
13. Normalize not having an opinion on things you don’t understand.
14. If you feel lonely, it might be a sign that you’re not being a good friend to yourself.
15. Don’t worry so much about love. Love is the most infinite and effortless presence in this world.
16. When a human being truly loves you, their biggest fear is to hurt you. But when a human being is in love with how you make them feel, their biggest fear is to lose you.
17. Travel breaks the illusion that your life is the only one possible.
18. Somewhere in the world, someone is praying for a life you take for granted.
19. Move your body. Not to make your body look good, but to celebrate what it’s capable of.
20. We are not an image. We are an experience. An entire human experience.
21. Any money you spend on eating well, dressing well, smelling good, and exploring the world is never a waste.
22. I hope nobody sees me sitting alone and feels sorry for me. I’m genuinely having the time of my life.
23. Nothing reveals character faster than how someone reacts to another person’s success.
24. ASAP: Allow Space and Pause.
25. Schedule your fun first. The vacation. The dinner. The concert. The weekend trip. Put joy on the calendar before work fills most of it. Most people work first, play with what’s left. There’s never anything left. Happiness needs planning, too.
26. If you feel nervous about doing something and your heart starts beating really fast, it is called “inner applause” because your heart is cheering you on!
27. What if the amount of good things in our life depends on our ability to notice them?
28. You just have to get really good at continuing.

28 things for 28 was originally published in Journal Kita on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Originally published at Surrounded by Heads and Bodies

“Are you lonely?” That’s the first question my friend asks when she sees me. At first, I didn’t understand what she was referring to because I wasn’t feeling it at all. I know I love doing a lot of things alone. Reading books in a coffee shop, going to the cinema, enjoying a concert, and much more. But that doesn’t mean I’m feeling lonely. She told me that knowing I do a lot of things alone makes her feel sorry because she assumes I’m lonely. She offered to keep me company as if finding a friend was the problem. I mean, I don’t even think about it!

It’s her empathy that makes her feel as if she were in my position; she would probably feel very lonely. She always grew up surrounded by a lot of friends. A lot. So it does make sense if, in almost every single one of her activities, there’s always someone with her. Meanwhile, I’ve only had the same small circle since I was in school. Besides, I’m also the eldest child, so I’m used to living away from home and learning to do everything alone. So being alone isn’t a problem for me. It can actually mean freedom for me, not the absence of something.

But does that mean my friend’s perspective is wrong? Not at all. I believe that people are shaped by experience. It shapes us through memories, events, and people we’ve encountered throughout our lives. So my friend’s reaction when she sees me doing almost everything alone is the result of her tracing back what she has been through and how she got through it. That’s why she kindly offered me company. And for me, who is used to doing everything alone, it’s a really sweet gesture.

Just like reading a book. Two people can finish the same book and walk away with completely different feelings about it. One loves the protagonist. The other thinks he’s insufferable. Same pages, same words. But they each brought their own life into it.

Her thinking that I was lonely didn’t feel like a judgment at all. I actually felt that it’s a way she shows care to her friends. And that’s why difference doesn’t have to mean conflict. When I meet someone who sees things differently, I want to know what they’ve been through.