Discovering while loosing

It was a quiet night, when I drove back to my home. It should have been a special night, for me, because its my birthday, making celebration or party eligible to me. I could have arranged one. But I did not. And there I was: driving back home, from office, doing the same routine hundreds of nights before.

The last time I had a birthday cake was a few years ago, when I was still married. But, I didn’t mind with the changes. If there’s a club of people who prefer to not celebrate their birthday, then I will be the member. Due to this, I often forget the birthday of my closest people, which is... bad.

Yes, I know… having different stance shouldn’t define the way I treat another. I don’t smoke, but I get along with my smoking friends so well… that sometimes I help them finish the cigarettes when we’re hanging out. J

For me, birthday celebration is for children who need some landmarks in their young life. As I grow mature, my concept of landmark and celebration changes to: life achievement. If I don’t have one, then there’s nothing to celebrate. So basically, for me, every day is the same day with new hope, new opportunity to mark achievement. Anytime you score one, then that’s when you celebrate it.

I was happy with my birthday, because many close relatives and friends had sent their lovely birthday greetings and messages. And that’s enough for me. So… there I was, driving back home in a totally ordinary occasion, hoping to arrive to my apartment as soon as possible for I had a lot of stuffs to do next day.

But then, something happened, taking my mind to my past, present, and future.

At exactly 00:00, the radio station played a song, Everglow, by Coldplay. It is a beautiful song, I love the lyric because it shows how you could be thankful and even celebrate your lost in a beautiful way, no matter how painful it is. You can resurrect yourself from the ruin to start a new life with better you, and forgive those sending you to the rubble for they eventually shape you into a new stronger you.

You revive yourself not to take a revenge, but rather to run your duty on earth: trying to make it into a better world, befriend with anyone including those hurting you, wishing them the best and choosing to remember the good times over the bad times.

Well, yes… It is a painful process to accept the fact that you’ve been wronged, to be in a point where you couldn’t tell whether you’re so sick that you deserved to be treated wrongly or it’s just them who were too wicked evil. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. You are not perfect, you will never be. You’re just human who can err and get lost, and so are they. You start to see them as your sparing-partner in a long not-always-easy test before coming back to your Creator.

And then you start to forgive them, learn to be more patient with life, and reach the content isle inside you, although the world you face is still as cruel as before. But hey… when it doesn’t degrade yourself, when it fails to change you into a crueler person, then you already win. The energy that you generate while resisting from the blizzard of your cruel world makes you everglow, which will possibly help reduce the cold.

And that night, while listening to Coldplay’s Everglow, I felt like a warm blanket shrouded me, making me broke down in a plain admittance that I was actually tired. I had been battling with my awful situation in the past three years, from September 2014 when God somehow exposed a principle problem in my marriage, a striking nail that I had felt since 2012 but I kept ignored choosing to move in a hope that everything would be better.

In the first one year, I tried my best to pull the nail. But the result was not as expected, forcing me to live separately with my wife in a hope that we could concentrate to improve ourselves without being intervened by the other’s anger. Unfortunately, to no avail. It was like I was paddling a boat to the South while the current and the wind headed me to the North.

The next year, I gave up and decided to break up to give chance for us to seek for our own path, differently. We silently divorced and I found myself in the next abyss of my life, after losing my mom a decade before. I was mad, protested to God, jumped into the other side of the world that I used to avoid: drinking, living like you will never be judged, etc.

But deep in my heart, I felt my conscience whispered, “The light is still there, very thin. Yet, not died. Do not let it fade and throw your soul to the edgeless darkness.” Several personal and, sometimes, spiritual experience made me stand back on my feet. I was lost, and I wanted to return to my path.

At that time, I found that standing back on my feet does not automatically open a door to reconcile with my wife. We had hurt each other so bad that I was afraid of the possibilities of seeing it repeated again. The anger, trauma, you name it... threw me into my selective mutism mode when I was with her. Then I filed my divorce to the court in 2016.

During the nine month process, I met a girl that I thought could be my next life-partner. We talked about marriage plan, until she said that she did not want to get pregnant. She eventually changed her mind, but it was too late when a situation made me upset.

She showed her envy when I carried my sick daughter to the hospital. She said that Namu should not be carried like a baby. It stung me. I will always be ready to carry Namu even if she's 20 years old if she needs me to. So, I concluded that the girl would be a good wife, but not a good partner to raise Namu. We're separated.

In June 2017, right 32 months after I first discovered the nail that stroke my marriage (in September 2014) and exactly 64 months after the nail stroke (in February 2012), God suddenly revoked my anger. I decided, with full open heart, to accept the past and reconcile with my ex-wife (the court had allowed me to divorce her).

But the God Almighty seemed like decided to separate us. My ex-wife found her new guy. I guess no one would believe me when I said that I was happy more than ever for that. She found the right guy who understands her, makes her happy, and can fully fill her expectation on life-partner. There’s a kind of sadness, of course, but not a regret because I’m happy with the end of our story.

I thought everything will be alright, for Namu, her, and me and I could befriend with her, just like before, hitting the mall for movies or weekend holiday, all of us: Namu, she and her husband, as well as me and my (future) wife. I recalled that she often told me stories about how good her friend and the spouse in hanging out with the ex.

And surprise! I was wrong, too naïve... it’s not a happy ending, and maybe will never be one. She and her insecurity that put me in misery as well as her guy’s insecurity showed the sour part of our story. I did face her insecurity problem during our marriage by explaining that insecurity is like bush fire: it comes from nothing but could burn everything to the ground. You cannot settle it by chopping down the bushes or stopping the heat wave, but control it. Having regard to what she did to me, it seems like the fire still burns.

She kicked me in her social media account, without letting me know. I was positioned just like those buzzers who don’t deserve to befriend with, must be kicked out, and whose existence is irrelevant not even for a simple notice. First, she unfriended me in Facebook, then erased her blog, delisted herself from our inactive Facebook group with my sisters. Not stopping there, she blocked me in her Facebook as if I’m a kind of her crazy fan — which lols me a lot.

At first, I was shocked. I mean...  after all that happened to me, the pain she inflicted to me, and how I struggled to forgive and befriend with her, her actions looked like to be deliberate kicks onto my newly-recovered wound. I hardly could understand it and tried to pay her back by acting childishly: blocked her from my whatsap. :D

It took me a while to reach my contempt state to regard the situation as a test for my patience, a never ending lesson I must learn. Thus, I decided to unblock her, and accept all shits that she threw at me—especially when I was about visiting Namu—knowing that it won’t affect my stable self and content life.

I know that you’re with me and the way you will show and you’re with me wherever I go

That night, somehow, I felt the presence of my mom, sitting right beside me in my car. Looking at me closely, sending a feeling that said everything would be okay, that I shouldn’t stop my journey, I must be patient, seize the day, and focus my perfectionism tendency into being a good guy and not into a materialistic goals or idealistic targets in life.

The song ended exactly when I entered to my apartment complex. After parking the car, I couldn’t stop thinking how mom often gives me this feeling. She often comes into my mind and reminds me to find a ground when I’m lost and tells me to stand up when I’m stumbled.

From that night, I found that I’m always be jolted with extra energy to face the world, energy from my Mom, and other special figures in my life who had passed away — or at least those I consider dead for many reasons, to give me this feeling.

The dead person can’t give you no harm, and the special ones will give you memories, valuable lessons, and surely just like Chris Martin wrote: this everglow. ***

P.S. On being a good guy, a beautiful close friend of mine responded that good guy is boring. I just smiled at her, no need to reply anything. If only she reads Quran, she will find a verse saying: Good man is destined to be with good woman. So… yeah, let me be that boring person. J