Loved, Blessed, & Enough

Describing the fluctuations over the last 2 years in a word makes me think “Am I Allah’s favorite?”.There are a year that seemed like a thread strung loosely, close to its limit, more so of a nose around one's neck or a chair barely bearing its weight, as the year has progressed fairly aggressively; fast-paced and oddly ambiguous.

A time where I was filled with too much sadness and disappointment. Pada akhirnya aku memilih untuk tetap mengalir meskipun terancam surut. Tapi itu adalah kesalahan terbesar yang pernah ada, karena aku mengalir dan larut pada keresahan yang tidak ada hilirnya. The pile of items isn’t something I can just throw away. It’s sometimes a stack of things that fights to remain silent so that they can be read and recalled again. Sometimes, people forget to mention that besides just understanding our feelings, we also have to understand that we’re living in a reality that we can’t control. Because the world and the people are just gonna keep crushing on me sometimes. I have no control over it, and I can’t do anything about it. It takes quite a long time to reflect on this, yeah too long to dealing with that.

Kunci dari semuanya yaitu Ikhlas – yang semula keruh dan kotor kemudian menjadi bersih dan murni. Bukan mengenai bagaimana 'merelakan', tetapi bagaimana 'memurnikan'. Berbicara mengenai ikhlas seperti membaca surat Al-Ikhlas, tidak ada satupun kata ikhlas yang tertulis di dalamnya. Jelas, ikhlas adalah hal yang tidak mudah untuk hanya diucapkan pun dimanifestasikan. I have to admit that nothing comes easy, so yeah take a deep breath and learn to let go of things beyond my control, focus on what I can change instead.

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” – Buddha

I was also in a confusing phase, tidak jarang untuk diam, step back, and rearrange plans sedemikian rupa. It takes a lot of time to let everything slide. To let things happen as they should happen. This phase isn’t easy either but I enjoy this process. It’s ok to slow down. Tidak semuanya harus sekarang, sesuatu yang semestinya milik kita akan datang pada waktu yang tepat, kan?

2023 I didn't set any goals. Whatever happens, happens. Whatever flow, flows. Whatever crash, crashes. Is it what it is. My ambition rested in a year. Feyza without any plan may not be a figure that people known. Adalah benar aku menjadi 2 orang yang berbeda dalam kurun waktu 2 tahun terakhir, but to become 10 isn’t always 5+5, right?

After going through a year that was filled with a lot of ‘people’ and made me put aside the people closest to me. I find myself re-interpreting every moment I spend with them. Whatever time I have with them because it's just that beautiful. They’re the most rude and blunt motherfuckers of this entire planet all the damn time. But, I've never once admitted how much they mean to me – at least not completely. Conversations with them are just so easy, it comes so naturally. Everything that I experience, feel or see, they know about it. They feel it with me, they see it with me, and they experience it with me. That I would always cherish the time together because there is nothing more interesting I've ever had in my life. They would stay up with me, do everything with me to keep me company. So that I don't have to do it alone. But, it's so weird how I've shown them the worst sides of me and they are still here.

I was done with wanting to be with ‘someone’. The absence of ‘someone’ led me to discover myself a LOT, I have had to turn my back on the crowd and go off-piste in the search of what keeps the fire burning in my heart. I enjoyed being solitude just me, myself & happy soul sambil tenggelam mendengarkan playlist-ku (yang mungkin bisa juga kamu dengarkan disini). But, it doesn’t mean I don’t need anybody else and I could live (literally) alone. My others significance (friends and family) helped me a lot on so many levels, I’m very very very thankful!

At that point, unexpectedly I met ‘someone’. Many of my friends said that everything went by so quickly. Because all my friends know how afraid I'm of water. I'm afraid to sink too deep. But too late, I forgot to tell him, I'm not good enough at swimming. I sank into it and slowly enjoyed the waves. Because the Caribbean Ocean is steady blue, yet calm. I feel secure at this time, the time when I'm not being perfect, when I'm messing up, and flaws are seen. Berbeda dengan sebelumnya, semua hal terasa begitu natural dan effortless, aku tidak berusaha memberi impresi. I never gravitated towards another person this much – I wrote down in my notes every new fact I found out about him, sepertinya saat ini sudah mencapai 50 fakta melebihi 7 fakta versi On the Spot, I guess? I don’t know how the intensity, passion, and overflowing joy has been unparalleled come from hahaha

Then here I'm, feeling thankful and enough.

So maybe, being good enough is only how you perceive yourself. People who truly loves you won’t need you to prove how great or useful you’re to them. Those who really belong to you won’t question or doubt you, they will embrace you. This is probably where you learn that loving someone makes you want to be a better person for yourself and for them, and so be it. Make the improvements. But remember, the only person who is eligible to determine your worth is you. For those who read this, hope you’re always enough for yourself. 

Kepada semua yang selalu membersamai, tidak ada kata lain yang muncul selain, terima kasih. Aku selalu berdoa untuk semua mimpi, harapan, dan doa yang kalian panjatkan dapat ter-aminkan. 

So yeah, it’s weird how the year started with me crying a lot, and ended with me smiling ear to ear almost every day. But that’s life, nothing’s quite permanent, including this state of happiness. The only thing left to do is to cherish it while it lasts. Tanpa rasa cukup, kebahagiaan hanyalah hasil dikurangi harapan. I feel like restarting my soul, feeling loved, blessed, and enough.