some tweets are normal-sounding, like
"I would have travelled the world" or
"I would made twice the savings I'm making now"
"I would have been married to my best friend"
yadda yadda.
meanwhile some others are so easy for me to love. which means, they're so sarcastic and cheeky they make me sneer and snort with laughter.
like these ones:
"by age 35, you should have lost most of your real life friends to misunderstandings, changing priorities, distance and unknown reasons and found a few hundred online strangers to laugh with." - @ruckcohlchez
"by age 35 you should have at least two thirds of your hard drive space taken up by recursively nested copies of the hard drives from all your previous computers." - @akerfoot
"by age 35 you should hate the last three albums by your favorite band" - @fowierism
"by age 35 you should wonder where your life went wrong at least 5 times an hour" - @Home_Halfway
or something as "dark" as
"by age 35 you should have completely lost your will to live" - @vivalacrap (to which I chuckle, bitterly).
I put a love to that kind of tweets because they feel so familiar.
people my age, from all around the globe, are sharing the mutual feeling of disorientation and bleak perception to how our lives would or have turned out.
I don't mean to sound ungrateful. yes my life has been a blessing, I got my family, a job, a house, and things I must've been (un)consciously dreamed or needed. but there's a certain something to growing older.
some things are lost, of course. youth, elasticity of the skin, spontaneity, recklessness, and even best friends...
but as the nature of the world, it is balanced with some things that are gained.
things like:
(as cliche as it always sounds) wisdom.
maturity (or a slight of).
brain that responses faster than the mouth. (crossing my fingers for that)
well. this gal's about to turn 35 this december *insya Allah*
I can't help not to ikut-ikutan envisioning what I think I would like to be by the age of 35.
you can call it a prayer, I guess.
here they are:
by the age of 35, you'd realize that certain things inside you, they won't transform into something else.
bad habits. poor judgments. weaknesses.
laziness, ignorance towards one's health, one's lack of attention to details. moody-ness.
they intensify.
it becomes much harder to "change."
so you'd just learn to live in harmony with them. maybe try to tame them, since it's never too late anyway.
by the age of 35, it's when you start to reap what you sow. little by little. it can be scary, or it can be gratifying.
by the age of 35, you'd finally learn to pick your battle. maybe it's because your heart softens, or maybe your emotional maturity improves. you just realize that some stuff are not worth to argue about. people believe what the want to believe.
by the age of 35, you'd finally realize that you don't need much, in terms of friends, stuff, or an elaborate plan "to be fulfilled."
as @theminimalists put it,
"I don't need much to pursue my passion. a cup of coffee, a place to write, and my thoughts tumbling onto the page will do just fine.
I don't need much to cultivate meaningful relationships. a friendly companion, a full-belly sunset, and a good conversation sound just right to me.
I don't need much to grow. daily action, small incremental changes, and a commitment to constantly improve my life will keep me growing.
I don't need much to live a meaningful life."
you'd start with what you have and start anyway.
by the age of 35, you'd finally (kind of) understand about acceptance.. how certain things are indeed *for* you, while some others aren't.
*****
in a quite unrelated way, the other day Path (the app) announced that they will close down operation by October 2018.
I barely checked the app, let alone post anything on it. taking it for granted, I assume some people still enjoy using it and think it would still be around in the long run.
but apparently not. it'll vanish just like Multiply did.
what makes it hard for me is that memories of Weich (until now) is safely stored there. his updates, his words, and ultimately, his presence. I used to re-download Path just to check Weich's page whenever I feel like it.
but it will be gone. and once again, I have to say goodbye to him...
so as soon as I heard the news, I immediately re-downloaded it again, then scrolled down his page, this time I tried capturing some posts which I found "memorable" (everything is, though).
I was engulfed with waves of emotions....
- it still feels as if he never left.
- all those plannings.. how he had asked his friends to spend summer holiday on december 2016. how he had wanted to do road trips across australia. and how he had hoped to having been settled by that time of year. how could my heart not break?
and then a new realization hit me.
as I saw his posts from around 2014 and 2015, I realized how he had transformed from the kind of person I was most familiar with, which is a 15-year-old teenager, into a mature, highly-functioning, and wise adult. I could feel that from our interactions. but only at this time I noticed his gradual changes, and it's from his mundane posts, like when he cooked, or when he made 3D renderings of his home, or his trips to Ikea.
I remember how he used to say, "lo sudah berjalan terlalu jauh, Kome, dan gue tertinggal di belakang."
just because I got married too early (ha). yeah at 24.
I graduated first among our friends.
I got a job while he was still at college.
I became a mother. and so on.
but did he know I rushed to graduate from binus because I hated it there?
did he know I rushed to get married because I wanted to get out of my parents' house as soon as I could?
did he know I settled that job at citi even though it was ridiculously low paying, because I had no clue what was even good for me?
I saw things handed to me and I seized them the fastest I could. without even giving it much thoughts, without even knowing what meaning, or learning, or a thorough reasoning behind it all. I was too damn reckless.
as I was stumbling into those roles that were handed to me (wife, mother, worker, clueless person), he strode silently, but resolutely.
he made a choice to be a more domestic person.
he spoke more gently. he became calmer, more understanding and less judgy (nyinyir di socmed sih teteuup). he thought more critically, he questioned consequential things.
he became a prominent employee and gained expertise.
he figured out whether he wanted to get a scholarship for master's degree or not. and where.
he came out to his mom.
he found new best friends.
he found love.
he was LIVING, and LEARNING. and then becoming.
and then it occurred to me, that he was doing it in reverse from what I have been doing. for me, the becoming came first... and so I was living mindlessly because I couldn't figure out the meaning behind those blessings.
*****
if there's one thing I truly want him to know right now, it's that
"sometimes you're ahead. sometimes you're behind.
the race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself."
(Mary Schmich)
therefore, I hope by the age of 35, I'd learn everything happens at its own time, moves at its own pace. there's no need to rush.
*) blog title from Yann Tiersen's song.
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