First Time I Met Him

He is a friend of mine. I had first time met him when my friend introduced me to him in some meeting. I was so young, clueless, and innocent back then. Let’s just say that we were the victims of a match-making fiesta by good willed relatives.

We made a conversation just to eliminate the ambush silence between us and it was me that started the conversation.

The conversation keep going and one day, it ended up on the messenger for every night and day.

He, a playful and nice person. Combine with witty and funny made him as an additional attractive spectrum color for brighten my day.

He was nice enough to find a love and nicer still to be thinking on a long term-basis with her. He never gave me a chance to ‘no’ him. I’ll never forgive him for that.

When he told me that he was in love and not with me, that’s when I think I actually began liking him.

We’d spoken once. A late night conversation, when I sat on the stairs and spoke in hushed tones, which seemed way too loud for the night. I liked his voice. I was also discreetly enjoying his smell.

He was busy trying to make a decent pattern of his life. I was young enough to dance through life and make everyone else dance. It wasn’t the right time for ‘us’.

And like all good things, we lost in touch. But any mention of a name, as his, and I would smile to myself. I like his name.

Years gone by, people came and left. The memory remained.

The next call was six years later.

The moment I picked up the phone and heard the voice on the other end, I knew it was he. Both of us were surprised.

Hesitant conversation, wary and curious too. Then leaving all bashfulness behind, a hearty conversation with both of us having so much to say and yet nothing at all.

His voice lingered in my head.

I almost like a dead deaf body when he asked me to meet somewhere. I was gasped and stuttered though.

Then, when we finally met. I kinda nervous and I really had no idea why I was so nervous. I usually could setting up my confidence in normal level as I met the new guy.

The way he fixed his eyes on me was kinda scary. In a good way. As if I couldn’t run nor hide anything. He sitting in front of me, listening. Every words I said. Fired him couples of questions like a bloody job interview, so damned intimidating.

Me, a girl who has defense as thick as china wall, opened myself to him. I feel vulnerable in front of him.

He smiled and said “Sorry for leaving you. I thought it never happened if I were with you for those years. But, you’re a stronger woman now. Not a spoiled little girl that I used to know.”

“So, I was remembered as a spoiled girl for you?”

He chuckled and rubbed my head. “In a good way, baby. From now, you’ll be just alright because I will standing behind you to support you and in front of you to protect you”.

And like always, he never gave me a chance to ‘no’ him. 

Leave Myself Behind

For every step I take towards you

You take none

And so I take two back

For every step I take towards you

I walk further away from you

Toshi

As I write this blog, I can't stop smiling. Hahaha.

Jadi tadi gue in charge dalam CLT (semacam fieldwork) dan klien gue dari Jepang. His name is Toshi. He is cute and funny.

Dari meeting hari Jum'at lalu di Plaza Senayan sama client. Mereka bilang akan ada orang dari head office  mereka di Jepang yang akan datang dan inspeksi CLT.

Jadi dengan SOP yang seabrek-abrek dan baru itu, akhirnya senior gue pun sampai gak jadi cuti karena ini adalah project pertama yang mendatangkan klien dari Jepang itu. If they are satisfied with us, then they will give all of the projects to us.

Lalu pada hari H pelaksanaan CLT, ternyata gue ga bisa ikut in charge karena banyak kerjaan di kantor yang harus gue selesaikan. Jadilah hanya senior gue aja. 

But then, sekitar satu jam senior gue disana, dia nelfon kalo dia dipanggil meeting sama bos untuk ke klien lainnya dan gue harus kesana menggantikan dia in charge.

Sampai di tempat CLT, gue dikenalin dengan beberapa klien yang baru gue kenal. Dua diantaranya udah ketemu pas gue meeting, dua lagi adalah orang brand management dan si Jepang ini.

Gue ngiranya orang Jepang ini akan seperti bapak-bapak, berkumis tipis, bermuka judes dan kaku. Tapi ternyata eh ternyata, orangnya masih muda kayaknya belom ada 30 tahun, ganteng, lucu dan ramaah banget.

Dia cerita kalo dia udah 7 bulan di Jakarta. Sebelumnya dia kerja di bank di Jepang dan dia bilang kalau "finance is boring" so then he choose marketing as his next job. Setelah resign, dia travelling ke beberapa kota di dunia, seperti New York, Chicago, California, dll. Dia bilang dia ga suka sama Amerika karena orangnya not friendly seperti di Indonesia dan Thailand.

Dia bilang dia suka Indonesia dan punya rencana untuk stay di Indonesia. Dia udah ke Bandung, Jogja, Bali, Manado, Banjarmasin, Aceh, dll. 

Waktu gue tanya kota mana yang paling dia suka, dia jawab Jogja. Gue kira dia bakal jawab Bali. Dia suka Jogja karena Candi Borobudur dan Prambanan. Dia juga suka Manado karena keragaman agamanya, dia suka Bandung karena udaranya sejuk dan ceweknya cantik-cantik hahaha.

Di pintu salah satu ruangan, ada peta Jabodetabek yang ditempel. Dia ngeliatin itu cukup lama, kayaknya agak menarik perhatiannya. Sampai akhirnya dia ngeh kali ya kalo gue ngeliatin, dan dia bilang "I like reading map" hahaha lucu amat ini orang zzz. Terus gue nanya, "where do you live?" Dia searching pake telunjuknya, hmm "This one. In Ke-red." and I was like he? Kered? "Yes, here!" Ooooohh Karet maksudnyee sodara-sodara. Karet Sudirman situ hahaha.

Dia nanya balik ke gue "And where Denna live?" Sampe akhirnya gue nunjuk Pamulang, dan dia bilang itu jauh banget. Dia nanya gue naik apa kalo ke kantor, dan lain-lain. Lalu kita ngobrol betapa macetnya Jakarta dan dibandingkan dengan Tokyo yang semua transportasinya serba cepat. But he likes live here, in Jakarta and about to find a girlfriend in Indonesia.

Yes, he is still single! Hahaha. Kenapa ye orang semenarik itu masih single. Serius dia lucu and fun to be with, gue aja yang stranger langsung bisa akrab sama dia. 

Dia dengan lucunya meragain cara monyet2 jalan dan ngelilingin dia waktu di Manado kalo ga salah apa di Bali ya? Lupa gue. Pokoknya gue laughing out loud, kayak temen lama haha.

I said "Hahahha Toshi you're so funny" dan dia terus melanjutkan ceritanya. Sampai pada akhirnya ada salah satu interviewer yang nyamber, mba itu nanya "Can you speak Mandarin?" Terus mereka ngobrol dikit-dikit pake bahasa Mandarinnya.

Lalu setelah mba interviewer pergi, dia randomly ngomong sendiri bahasa-bahasa asing, kayak "I love you", "Saranghaeyo", terus lebih random lagi dia nanya "What is i love you in bahasa indonesia?" gue bilang "Aku cinta kamu", "and what it is in france? ah i forgot. what it its ya?" gue juga berpikiri keras, gue lupa banget padahal gue tau. 

Akhirnya setelah mengumpulkan memori-memori dengan kekuatan bulan, gue inget juga, yaitu "Tu me manques" hahaha. Terus gue ajarin dia juga beberapa bahasa prancis yang gue tau. Jadi kalo misalkan dia suka sama people in France, dia akan bilang itu ahahaha.

Setelah itu pas di pantry, banyak interviewer pada antre untuk ngambil product yang mau ditest. Mereka pada bilang "aduh harus sabar ya ini antrenya lama", lalu si Toshi mengulang-ngulang kata sabar itu. 

Gue sampe pengen ketawa. "Do you know what is sabar?" karena dia memang bisa sedikit-sedikit bahasa Indonesia dengan pelafalan yang sangat amat lucu hahaha. Gue bilang "sabar is be patient", "Ooooo oke sabar sabar" kata dia, hahhahaha. "You know new vocab ya", "Yaaa, I will remember it, sabar sabar".

Pas mau pulang tadinya mau gue anter sampe dia nemu taksi, tapi di depan, dia bilang katanya dia mau naik ojek aja. Dia suka naik ojek karena cepet nyampe dan ga macet. 

Dia juga ga minta ditemenin dan malah bilang "It is oke if you stay here. I will take a walk and get the ojek over there. It's okey, Denna"

Yaudah karena dia maunya begitu, akhirnya gue salaman. Nanya apakah dia besok akan dateng lagi, dan dia bilang akan nanya ke bosnya dulu, whether he will come or not tomorrow.

I feel like I just met my new (best)friend and I wish we could meet again in another time.

Thank you, Toshi. You really made my day :D

An Open Letter To You

Dear You,

I didn’t really know what to write when I first set out to talk to you. As adult, we have the ability to recognize when something is over and accept that you can’t change it, right? As with many things in my life, I guess I sometimes walk around with the frayed strings of what we broke off. Words I didn’t say, ways in which I hurt you, things that I’ve changed that I wish you could see.

I feel like I was so much happier when we broke up, the relieve feeling that I believe as the right decision we have made. 

When I look back at the words I allowed myself to say to you, and the mistakes that I thought were more than okay to be making, I feel overwhelmed with embarrassment and regret. How could I have let you, someone who knew me well enough to love me, to rub my scalp when I was sick and cheer me up when I'm down, see me in such an immature, hurtful state? I just want to go back and wipe those ugly moments from your memory. I want you to see me only as I should have been treating you, with compassion and respect. 

“Sorry” is a hard word to say, though, and not really because you don’t want to admit you’re wrong. It just often feels… insufficient. It feels like I’m trying to make excuses for something. I’m not. I am sorry. I am sorry that I allowed myself to drag the end of our relationship out so much farther than it should have gone. 

There are only so many fights, so many words we don’t really mean hurled at each other before we both have to say, “Okay, this isn’t working.” I should have done that much sooner than I did, and maybe you should have, too, but I’m not here to blame you.

And I know that’s hard to believe, because I spent so much time blaming you for things. You weren’t care enough, or funny enough, or love me enough. You didn’t do things the way I thought you should do them, and therefore you deserved to hear about it. 

Since then, though, I’ve figured out that running around in circles trying to change people isn’t going to help anyone, and that the only person I can actually change is myself. I want you to understand that I don’t hate you, I hated the person that you were with me. But I also hated the person I was with you. We were like this awful poison coursing through each other’s veins. I was sick.

When I say that I want you to be happy, I mean it. Really mean it. We’re used to thinking that no one can just move on from a lost love and genuinely want the other person to find happiness somewhere else in life, but I do. It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally realized that we were simply not right for each other.

You deserve to be with someone who makes you feel good about who you are, who could bring the best of you and support you anytime. And after spending so long trying to fit a jagged piece into the puzzle with me, you should be able to just feel the ease of a good match.

I do think about you sometimes, though. I think about what you’re doing, who you’ve become without me, what parts of your personality have risen to the top or almost faded away now that I am no longer a daily influence on your life. 

I want to see you as a happy, and learned how to be happy and full. I want you to learned to express your emotion, to speak out about what you actually feel. When you love her, tell her you love her. When you don't want to lose her, tell her that she's important to your life. When you want her back, tell her that you want her back. Just tell her anything you feel. And don't make her sick of questioning about how do you feel about her.

I am no longer tricking myself into thinking that we should have made it work (or that it was even a possibility), and the mourning period of your loss has passed. It’s more now a quiet sadness about the love that has disappeared from my life. 

And as you may know that I can befriend with all of my ex before you. Even better I can be their bestfriend and never get lost contact with them. So that I might treat you as I treated them. As a real friend.

Maybe if you’re free one day, we could get a cup of coffee. We could sit and talk about all of the funny things that happened with your old friends and our long trips in the past, and the things we used to talk about doing but never ended up getting to.

It would be nice to feel that all of that love wasn’t meant to just be destroyed by the window of ugliness we experienced towards the end. There were still good things to take out of our love, so much that I learned. I hope you learned, too. 

I hope that you can look back and see things about us that make you smile, that remind you how much fun it could be, even if we weren’t meant to be. 

I hope you understand that I will always care for you, in the way one might a distant friend you’ve lost touch with but still long to laugh with every so often. 

And I hope you’re well. I hope you’re living life the way you wanted to, and have gained enough perspective to know, as I know, that something doesn’t have to last forever to have value.

Love,
Me.

Book Page Rhyme

(weheartit.com)

It's page zero, hollow like an empty shell-souled hero. 

It's page one, introduction. What we want, is affection.

It's page two, and I already miss you.

It's page three, and I love the way you miss me.

It's page four, and I love you even more.

It's page five, and baby you're all my life.

It's page six, and the distance between us makes me sick.

It's page seven, but you're the best present I've ever been given.

It's page eight, but sorry all my sweet words are fake.

It's page nine, almost the end so I can pretend to be fine.

It's page ten, so we finally reach the end

Close the book, and let's forget how we used to look.

Open a new one, and let's get things done.

Rhyme by : @ftkf @benzbara @_rndr

Pada Akhirnya

*Masalah Nyari Kerja*
Mama : Kenapa gak kamu ambil?
Aku : Katanya kerjanya capek, Ma. Asisten Relationship Manager, ngurusin administrasi kredit nasabah. Kontrak juga setahun dan kena pinalti kalo kurang dari setahun. Banyak yang keluar sebelum setahun juga kata seniorku.
Mama : Tapi bukannya dari dulu kamu pengen kerja di Bank M***** ya?
Aku : Iya sih.
Mama : Terus kalau kamu tau dari awal kerjaannya kayak gitu, kenapa diikutin terus proses testnya? Gak capek mondar-mandir ke Cikini?
Aku : Ya penasaran aja testnya kayak apa. Aku bisa keterima atau nggak. Lagian gajinya gak pas hehe.
Mama : Udah capek-capek test, pas keterima ujung-ujungnya malah kamu tolak.
Aku : Hehehe :D

*Masalah Percintaan*
Anne : Lo mau nyari cowok yang gimana lagi sih?
Aku : Yang bisa bikin gue nyaman aja.
Anne : Bukannya sama cowok yang lagi deket sekarang juga lo nyaman katanya?
Aku : Hmm lumayan sih.
Anne : Terus?
Aku : Ya udah jalanin dulu aja. Gue masih pengen kenal lebih dalam sama dia.
Anne : Dari dulu selalu gitu, ujung-ujungnya gak jadian juga lo sama dia kan.
Aku : Hehehe gak tau deh..

Gue baru sadar kalau gue orangnya bener-bener pemilih dan pemikir banget dalam menentukan sesuatu yang berkaitan sama masa depan gue. Gue lebih baik menunggu yang tepat dan cocok buat gue dibandingkan harus terburu-buru dan maksain sesuatu yang gue gak suka.

Semoga masih banyak peluang kerja dan nice guy lainnya di luar sana yang cocok buat gue hihi. Amin.

A Piece of Secret

Jika nanti sesuatu hal terjadi padaku

Aku memiliki sebuah pesan untukmu

Ada di sebuah ruang

Aku selalu membawanya 

Di belakang secarik kertas licin

Pesan untukmu

Dan hanya kamu yang boleh membukanya

be wise

Usually using your logic will hurt your heart. You might be feel that is the best way to win your logic. But you better know,your heart know what you really need, not only what you want. Be wise, girl.

-Anastasia Reza Irviana-

pain

percakapan dengan seorang teman beberapa hari yg lalu :

gue : katanya sakit itu bisa jadi indah ya kalo kita udah terbiasa disakitin?
dia : salah, sakit itu jadi indah kalo lo bisa ambil hikmahnya. bukan berarti lo harus disakitin terus biar ga ngerasa sakit lagi
gue : trs gimana caranya biar ga sakit lagi?
dia : jangan pernah sendirian aja

12 Februari 2010
jam 15:44

defiance

woman : i need a gun
man : what for?
woman : for protection
man : woman has a man for protection
woman : then, i need a protection

Grabbed from Defiance movie.