Fresh Wind & Green Grass

Gonna miss this toothless smile

I learned from college that parenthood is one major moment in one’s life that will change the person’s entire worldview. People will change priorities, and it will make them closer to their parents as they have stepped in their parents’ shoes. Add it to the absence of my mother and miscarriage; I think my own parenthood experience has changed me entirely. One year surely passed by so fast, and yet today I still feel like seeing miracle on a daily basis, having a rainbow baby.

The world is not so kind to females who bear offspring. Like in the species that I’ve spent almost a decade working for, the Komodo dragon, the females guard their eggs for months without eating – sometimes from their own father, losing weight drastically. It is also ironic when I was pregnant and got flu – I couldn’t take any medicine – being pregnant was wild, tops it with being sick. When breastfeeding, my immune went down, and no matter how sick I was, I needed to keep breastfeeding to give immunity to my baby. When I think about it – it is so tormenting. Doing it all while still working stuff, and the only person who really knew you and understood how difficult the situation is is already gone. There were countless times I cried alone, missing my mother, thinking during breastfeeding at 3 AM if she would praise me that I am a good mother. Those times were so dark and lonely. Even lonelier than when I cried at her funeral. I remember the year 2018, the only year that I remember the whole timeline, the people involved and what they said or did, and the pain in the chest of how bad I said goodbye to the person who gave birth to me.

Gonna miss this moment

All that struggle with outbursts of emotion during breastfeeding and fatigue of holding a baby that keeps growing - now fades away. The darkest side of all those, I think, is how lonely it is to be a motherless mother, but you are still thankful for the experience of holding your own baby. I am beginning to understand why my mother and father did things the way they did, and it makes contact with one of them becoming more bearable every single day. Every day I woke up and saw how the face of my baby becoming different every day. He grows taller and bigger, heavier, and stronger. So strong that he only caught the flu once in his entire life for a year, and I am thankful for that. 

Suddenly, the crib doesn’t fit, the shirts are too small, the favorite food is rejected, and then he crawls, sits, and tries to stand. Everything changes so fast. I learned that motherhood gives you loneliness but also teaches you that changes are irrefutable. In the blink of an eye, he turns one - officially no longer a baby. I will miss those tiny feet and hands. 

They say it takes a village to raise a kid.

But still, the absence of the mother’s mother leaves a hole that can’t be filled. I forever long for my late mother, who’d congratulate me on raising a healthy son while cherishing every second I spent with my little, very own family. I want to share his milestone and laugh with someone who taught me to walk, too, but alas, she’s not here anymore. 

Gonna miss this birthday hike

Unless -  you have a good spouse. My husband does really lift half of the weight off of my shoulder. He shares domestic chores, and starting from my baby’s 7-8 months old, he started to cook almost all the food for the family. He ensures that I don’t feel lonely at times; and these things make life easier when I need to babysit the kid during the day to not missing anything of his milestone; and work on 3 jobs on the evenings or weekends. We even still have time for grocery time each Saturday and a skateboard session on Sunday for my husband while I stroll with my baby on the beach. We do believe this routine will change - as after baby, we have witnessed how change is the only thing that’s constant in life. 

Motherless motherhood taught me many things that I’d never imagined. I keep a promise to myself to never say goodbye when I am angry. I try to listen to someone’s reasons. I am beginning to see how free will and free mind are also a privilege. Raised in a conservative but still have a say in everything, and having the right to choose my own path is a huge privilege. And yes, it’s true that I am becoming closer to my father, and he has started to share things I never heard before - like how he bought a retirement property for my late mom and him, but now it’s just empty - he never thinks to rent it, it’s even still unfurnished after 6 years. Learning that things are only things - because when the person you share happiness with is gone, it means nothing. It’s true that happiness is only real when shared. So I try everyday to make the top priority in my schedule is “to be present for people whose presence I cherish”. You might lose a mother, but you are full of love by the new family that you chose to be with. Not to be forgetting a good mother-in-law, too, who treats you like her own daughter. 

We'll be back here, and he will be bigger, knowing more things than I do when that happens

My body has been back to the pre-pregnancy era, but my delivery scar is still there. Every morning, I look at it and am reminded of Louis Armstrong…

“I hear babies cry, I watch them grow 

They'll learn much more than I'll ever know

And I think to myself; what a wonderful world.”

When I was younger, I believed vicarious learning was the most essential type of learning of all. I mean, isn’t it amazing that our species can learn something from people’s experience, not our own? But when I experienced pregnancy, now I do believe that nothing beats experiential learning.

My husband and I made a decision at the beginning of our marriage that we weren’t ready for kids so we decided to postpone it for 2 to 3 years. I personally needed a very thorough and long thought for this decision. Answering the head’s questions like Why do I need a child? Will I be a good mother? What if one day, s/he grew up the way I had not expected?

Along the way, we learned that the maternity insurance scheme doesn’t work that flexibly, so we needed to try in our 1.5 years of marriage. Plus, I’m approaching the age of 30. After the screening test, we learned that we were fertile and everything was normal – thanks to our no-smoking & alcohol lifestyle, we successfully conceived on the first try during my fertile period. However, in the ten weeks of pregnancy, I started to bleed and rushed to the ER, finding out I got a blighted ovum in a few hours. There was no time to process the loss of our soon-to-be baby, so my husband and I decided to have a D&C procedure to make sure that all the tissue came out of my body. I was then run into the surgery room, and in the next few hours, my husband and I got home to cry out our loss.

This moment was life-changing. I started to do my own desk research on blighted ovum and found out the chance of this type of miscarriage happening is 50%, and lots of people experienced this. As there was no support group and I was super reluctant to blatant sayings about being patient from those who never had experienced these conditions, I spent a lot of time studying others’ journeys to cope with this kind of grief. Having a miscarriage is an unexplainable situation because I never knew why the baby wouldn’t grow. As there is no scientific assurance on its cause, it was more difficult to process rather than facing my mom’s fatal accident. There is no one to blame. Lots of other parents said even the loss will never get over until you have another kid because it was still a pregnancy, and we are losing our chance to hold our baby.

One of many things that changed in my life after the miscarriage was that I became more aware of what I wanted in life. I no longer hold the ambition to look for more projects and new opportunities; all seemed so faded. I immediately dropped around 10 leads of clients. The career peak of mine that I experienced in the last 2 years seemed no longer significant when I dealt with this. When I started to get pregnant, to be honest, because it happened so soon as we first tried to conceive, I didn’t realize how ready I was to be a parent. During the grieving period, I came to realize that no one is ever ready to be a parent, but losing a baby is as painful as when you really want to have one. I need to be ready, not wait to be ready. The other thing is I came to realize how dear my husband is to me and how he has so much love for me to consume. He was totally present at all times, leaving all the work behind, and stood by me at the hospital. He was always there when I was experiencing a breakdown again, and it made him the only single person on Earth I wanted to talk to. At some points, I felt that Earth did not exist anymore, just the two of us. 

After the experience, we talked a lot about our life and work. We came to realize that we gave too much to others that we didn’t get back as much as we gave. We decided to be colder and say no to many things or opportunities so that the burden of things is not on our shoulders anymore. I recalled that a specialized maternity nurse asked me in the ER whether I experienced stress or not, and I confidently said no. She replied, “It is often the stress that you are not aware of.” I think that was a wake-up call to be a kinder version of ourselves. Giving up on being “always available for work, and always giving the best at work”. I stopped to say hi first to family and friends because, typically, I would be the first to do so and listened to all of their stories without them asking mine.

I think hiring a maid is no longer a relevant thing these days, so I tried to do everything on my own despite the growing belly

We stopped trying for a while to give my body a good rest, and six months after the miscarriage, I got two lines on a pregnancy test. I was happy for a second, but then the anxiety stormed me without mercy. At 4 AM, I suddenly realized that I needed to get help. Then I read about emotional cushioning and found it’s what I felt. I hoped that it was not too serious that I needed to see a therapist.

For you who just experienced a miscarriage, here are for you; I hope these help because they did for me:

• Anxiety of Pregnancy after Miscarriage
• Michelle Obama on Miscarriage
• ‘How I Felt Being Pregnant, After My Loss’

And these are tips for you after having heard your relatives or friends had miscarriages:

• Take a pause; don’t immediately act. Say genuinely that you’re sorry to hear it, and ask if there’s anything you can help with. 
• Don’t tell them to be patient, or don’t worry, or just ask them to try again, or it’s God’s plan. Don’t ask why. It’s hurtful, has no point, and not helping at all. You’ll remind them of all the pain they felt and tried to leave behind.
• Unless you have no experience with miscarriage, don’t tell any story to them about miscarriage. Whether it’s your friends’ experiences or anyone else's. No, never. When you feel that you “know how it feels”, no, you don’t. So just give them a silent comfort.
• If you have experience with miscarriage, talk with them in private and ask how they feel. Then, after they tell their side of the story, share yours. I found it very relaxing to hear about my neighbors’ experience with miscarriage, and it really helped me to carry on. Unfortunately, support group is rarely available in Indonesia, so I only could read or watched people’s stories online and it did help me a lot to cope.

Second pregnancy that went so smooth

During this second pregnancy, I decided to drop off many job opportunities to be more focused on myself, my baby, my husband, and, of course, my cat - before he became the forgotten first child. My hub and I were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to finish all financial liabilities and debt at the beginning of this second pregnancy, so we can be more lax on thinking about money. I left only non-profit work on my plates, things that I enjoy the most and that are flexible, time-wise and emotion-wise. I started a new hobby to write drama series reviews and it helped me a lot to heal myself. I began to enjoy my Monday morning sipping milk with no weekly report and absorbing a great amount of Bali sunshine from my dining room.

Celebrating 7-months pregnancy with closest friends

I had the best time of myself, meeting old friends and hosting house parties, and found out that a lot of women around me actually experienced miscarriage in their first pregnancy. One that shocked me was my first mentor of grant-writing, a super kind American woman who worked for the US Embassy in Jakarta for several years, then moved to Montana, and is now happily married for decades with two young adult kids. I just knew that she experienced the same type of miscarriage with mine in the third month of her first pregnancy, and it was very common, too, in the US. 

3 months, Plaga Eco Park, Petang

During this period, I also witnessed the best quality of a man came out from my husband, who always drove me everywhere no matter how busy he was, who cleaned my feet during a bath because I no longer could reach them, cooked for me, did gardening stuff, and so on. He is everything I could ask for in a life partner, and I am blessed with his presence. I also found a new ally, a renowned paleobotanist from Thailand who works around the world and is a supportive woman, and together we are cooking something amazing. All the work, including publishing two papers, while being pregnant - and surprisingly, my regular big government client still hired me to conduct research at the end of my pregnancy; and I think, judging by their praise at the end of the project, I nailed it. 

4 months, Batur, Kintamani

I always have low anxiety when it comes to general quality of life, but this pregnancy really brought me the experience of anxiety. I constantly thought of whether he would survive and be happy, and even though every hospital visit and ultrasound said everything was okay, I often found myself thinking about a lot of things happening inside my belly. Every kick and punch the baby gave me became a short assurance that everything was okay, but then, hours later, I got that anxiety again. Beating this anxiety felt like another adulthood trophy, and I was never more proud of myself. I have never loved my body the same way I did when I was pregnant. And I just realized I looked good in pregnancy. No pregnancy nose, acne, or excessive fat. I gained 20 kgs, but it wasn't looked that way. Oh, I love being pregnant (though I am not sure I would love to go over it again).

5 months - Bali Botanical Park, Bedugul

Then it happened. After months of yoga to try for vaginal delivery, a week of constant late-night contraction, and almost reaching 40 weeks of pregnancy, my baby decided to stay in my womb. My hub and I decided quite quickly to get a C-section on Friday morning after Galungan festivities, and he was born into the world. My rainbow baby is big, beautiful, and healthy. Weighing 3.3 kgs, with no sign of abnormality or yellow skin, he stayed in my room for two consecutive days in the hospital, and we came home together. There was only my husband there, but the world had never seemed that peaceful to me. The first night was exhaustive because he had colic, but it taught me and my husband a lot of newborn care.

6 months - Nuanu city, Tabanan

Surprised me a lot how so many people were happy with him being born. We had so many gifts and guests, kind prayers, and even the whole neighborhood rallied when our car approached our house. Some closest neighbors even accompanied us to leave the hospital and helped us to prepare the things we needed for placenta burial. We got so many things for caring for the baby from gifts from around the world - from nuclear and extended family members, friends, colleagues, and neighbors - even though we already said that we needed nothing but prayer, but now I do believe in the saying: it does take a village to raise kids. My neighbors offered help to take care of the newborn (because they noticed my hub and I have no family in Bali, and we decided not to hire a nanny or domestic helper) and sent us food. I often think about what kind of things I have done to them that make them so kind to my little family. What could I ask for more than a caring neighborhood, attentive in-laws, a loving husband, and a wave of breastmilk that is more than sufficient to feed my baby - along with the privilege of a Working-from-Anywhere arrangement to be with my baby always?

Javanese-style placenta burial. All equipment was provided by our neighbors and my in-laws.

Tips for giving a present to a new mom:

• Food. Give a package of ease and comfort; the best are frozen foods because it will be sleepless nights and too much to cook.
• High-pitch and contrast toys to stimulate the newborn.
• Nursing pillow for supporting mom’s weak muscles when feeding.
• I also suggest visiting the new mom (if the baby is healthy) at the hospital because she doesn’t need to serve you anything, and there is a feeling for you to just make a quick visit. If you plan to visit at home, confirm first and be on time! A new mom, especially when she has no help from family or nanny, struggles with schedules.

What is intriguing for me is the biology part. I came to realize that we humans are biological creatures, after all. Sometimes, the reason to have kids is just a force of nature, just like sex. But as social and highly intelligent creatures, we tried so much to redefine everything based on social constructs. For example, when medical research has found it is best to have kids before the mother (and father, actually) reaches 35 years old, we denied it so hard to say that it is okay to have kids whenever you are ready, even if it is late in life (do the math: how old will you be when your kid still need financial support to thrive? Will you be fit enough to carry a newborn and have never-ending sleepless nights?). 

Our first-day rodeo. The hospital was so good that it allowed new moms with healthy babies to spend all days and nights with their babies in the same room.

Our little bundle of joy

Later, I also found out that I am among the lucky mothers who have no problem with breastmilk and even get excess to be pumped every morning. My hub and I followed a really good and calming online class about breastfeeding before labor, and everything the counselor said was true: breastfeeding is a good collaboration between mom, baby, and father. It has to be given regularly so that the hormone will keep producing milk, but the baby should be able to latch correctly to the nipples, and the father should give proper support. I hope that every mother out there also gets this privilege of mine.

My liquid gold excess. Forever grateful for this.

Another interesting part is that I found myself crying sometimes when I breastfed my baby, remembering the miscarriage. I found out later that this is normal due to a phenomenon called Dysphoric milk ejection reflex, or D-MER. I had read that this would happen, but I let it burst. Feeling the pain is good for us to move on. I know that the memory of the miscarriage will stay forever, but I promise to cherish the existence of my son even more. My son, I would not be a perfect mother, but I will always pray that the world will be kind to you and you are happy to be born.

I am blessed to have these two

All in all, I am thankful for this experience, the VIP seat of the beginning of motherhood. It gives me a whole new perspective on life, and knowing I chose the right husband (through an emotional roller-coaster of love life stories), a truly caring, supportive, loving, and present man. To be present, when we don’t have parents to hold our hands when those big moments happen, times when I needed help the most. People say that a woman will never forget how a man treats her when she is pregnant and giving labor, and that is true. I also witnessed how high my patience can be when caring for my baby. My life would never be the same, and I don’t mind at all. Being pregnant, miscarried, in labor, and breastfeeding - keeping a human alive with only my body in two years and still not losing my old self, had given me power as a new human more than I ever imagined.

Lawu, one of the most diverse mountain ecosystems I've ever visited.

Humans on Earth are intrigued by stories because of their capability of reflective thinking. Be a good storyteller, and you will have others’ attention. My grad thesis experiment proved how even adults are affected by a story about animals that we often find in kids’ books. Famous stories across the world are solid proofs of how prone we are to our ego, that fall in love with the idea of how humans have changed the world and the protagonists of the universe. 

So, what if we are not the protagonists of our life stories?

What if scientists are not the ones who are able to debunk fake psychics, like in the Japanese series “Trick” (and remembering James Randi)? What if the captain of a mission space-ships who is looking for lunar water to help the water crisis on Earth is no more capable than a zoologist who understands human evolution after consuming lunar water, like in the Korean series “The Silent Sea”? What if the key to solving multi-layer problems is a multidisciplinary collaboration where no one is the main protagonist?

I am writing this in a hopeless state of mind to see that conservation nowadays feels like a competition rather than cooperation. We, conservationists, are so hopeless, ignoring the fact that the only reason humans exist today is their cooperation, and at the basic level, we are so cooperative. Our level of cooperation is so advanced and distinguished from other big apes, as explained by Frans de Waal in his book “The Age of Empathy”. When I see conservation today, I often find scientists making their own boundaries to connect. They only talk to each other on Twitter, only liking and being involved in conversations about their expertise. It’s like living in a bubble: it’s growing bigger and more fragile to be popped, honestly. We don’t try further to be inclusive and invite experts from another field or try to understand what others think of our communications.

I lost count of having myself laugh or raising eyebrows at how exclusive our conservation communications are. Using jargon that people don’t understand and trying so hard to make conservation science “difficult, complex, something you wouldn’t understand, so just listen to us”. It’s so silly that they have expensive conference travel budget posts but do not hire a good copywriter or graphic designer. Another time, I was pissed to know that some colleagues prioritized choosing where to publish scientific papers when our projects finished over the quality standard and real impact of the scientific workshop that we were working on. It’s just… I’m lost for words. 

The “Bones” series from Fox is the best example where we can learn about how to be a good scientist. In the beginning, Dr. Temperance Brennan, a genius but full-of-oneself forensic anthropologist, was so unempathetic and cold, seeing there is no importance in understanding “soft science” like psychology or other forms of social sciences (this confused me too until I learned that forensic anthropologist is so different to anthropology and categorized as STEM) until she witnessed a mental illness patient had his episode and apologized to the leading psychologist. She also developed a good manner of working with artists and FBI agents, trying to see that there are no superior professions or skills. Dr. Brennan also learned to respect his religious Catholic husband and came to an understanding that having faith and being surrounded by family is what makes humans strong, whereas originally, she despised religions and thought those were disgusting man-made stories. In the series finale (spoiler alert), Dr. Brennan is no longer the competitive scientist but giving the throne of lab chief to her handicapped colleague - best friend. Also, she nominated her colleague, a woman artist, for a very prestigious award that she had never won before, something that she would always be jealous of other women winning because she thought she deserved all the credits in this world. Previously she even always said that this woman fellow was just an artist that happened to work at the museum and not a genius like her. I hated Brennan so much for about 9 seasons and came to love her and really hope that I can be like her, to try so hard to become a better and more inclusive person every day, to be a good mentor for her interns, and not afraid to be back from square one even to reexamine all bones remains when everything goes wrong.  

I hope conservation can be like that, full of multidisciplinary and multinational collaborations and discussions. Although created by a Republican production house, I can say also that “Bones” is the most inclusive criminal series I’ve watched; there are Black women, Muslim Persian immigrants, Hispanic artists, LGBT fellows, and so on. It shows that no matter what our political views are, we can create something that shows others what inclusivity means. So why do we compete when we can cooperate? Many brands like Toyota Daihatsu or Blackpink x various Western musicians have proved that cooperation is a good thing. It’s making me question whether we run conservation truly to make the world better or just to make us looks better?

Seriously, we just need to stop trying so hard to be the main protagonist and provide the space for others to start the conversation. It's not too much to be reminded of the principle of a sustainable ecosystem: diversity.

Earlier this year, I finished a book written by the legendary Yei Theodora Izaki titled “Japanese Folktales”. I couldn’t help but notice that so many Japanese tales teach the reader to forgive and make peace, rather than to seek revenge. This is so contrasted with the ‘katakiuchi’ (blood-revenge) culture back in the Samurai era. Or maybe, because it is so rare yet desired, lots of these tales try to reach people’s hearts to forgive their past enemies. One of the stories is about a daughter who finally made peace with her stepmom, and it was only possible through the mirror that her late mom passed down to her, saying that she would always be with her daughter through the mirror, so she should not worry anything in the future (while actually what the daughter saw was herself, but getting older to be more like her mom).

Speaking of revenge, this month marked the fourth year my mom passed away. She died in a road accident, where according to witnesses, two young bikers hit her and ran away. Last year I watched a Korean drama series titled “Taxi Driver” with the premise of serving justice for people who had been mistreated and faced the dull edge of the law. There was a dialogue; “why is it better to lose 100 killers than to convict 1 wrong person? Where’s the justice for the families of 100 who were murdered?”. God, this dialogue is genius. Korean drama is always successful in highlighting pieces of life and unanswered questions, compared to Western drama, which always provides a clear closure. Just like the latest “The Batman”, where Batman evolved from “the vengeance” into the assistant of justice. When I reflect on my Mom’s case, no one in my family even has the desire to seek the truth - about who killed her really. There was no anger or rage. Despite all the painful cries, none of us tried to ask the nearest convenience store for its CCTV recording, to even run a vehicle registration plate check. 

So what if, I ever meet those two people again in my life? Will I report them to the police or just close my eye and doesn’t leave the world goes blind for not giving an eye for an eye? Is it enough to have them apologize? But really, what does apologize mean when it comes to an old pain? Take a simple case where politician Arteria Dahlan asked a law enforcement staff to speak Indonesian rather than Sundanese in an official meeting. I rarely find myself agreeing with him, but I can understand the statement. Arteria was asked to apologize, and he was okay with it. I found it very, very strange. Being alienated in a meeting or social situation with intense discussion in a language you don’t understand is painful. It’s a form of ostracization that is only the power capable of doing so. How about people that are being alienated? Who’s gonna apologize to them? This is why I never like being a part of the majority, because I see crimes and abuse of power because of the majority's influence, regardless of the identity that makes them a majority - race, religion, or anything else. So should we take revenge on these people by alienating their members when we are the majority, and they aren’t? In my opinion, I would rather move to a society like NTT province, whose hundreds of local languages, but decided to unite with Bahasa Indonesia and forget that society that alienated me. Everyone in NTT, no matter how secluded a community is, is able to speak Bahasa. I won’t waste my time trying to make peace with those abusers or try to blend in. I would forget those people as if they never existed, so they don’t need to apologize because I will rise above the pain on my own.

And that’s maybe what I will do with my Mom’s killers. I will let myself live my life on my own as myself, who is not vengeful, or trying too hard to be better than my enemies. I will seek out a life that I’m happy with, and that’s when my revenge ends. If I meet the two killers on the road, I will pass by as if they've never been born in this world - while I’m living a happy life and enjoying every single moment.

Wherever I'll go in the next chapter of life, I'll surely miss Bali's Makoto Shinkai sky

Here it comes again; a biannual state where a little part of my brain starts to re-contemplate all the life choices I’ve made and which path I’d like to take moving forward. I’ve been bragging about my multi-worlds to everyone - that I do science as well as a true scientist, and I do involve myself in various for-profit industries and politics. But late at night, or whenever I find myself sitting alone in the airport or a cafe, among these worlds, what kind of world do I want to be in eternally? I’ll be celebrating the age of 30 around a year from now, and which part of me I’d like to see is still there and not?

I’ve been talking about this with my husband lately, and I found something funny. He took selfies as he grew older, and he said he felt better about himself than when he was younger. This is the total opposite of women. A woman grows insecurity when she grows older, with wrinkles on her face and body that are different from her youth. The decision to have or not to have kids, to pursue her ambitious dream, or just stay low and be happy in her daily routine. And I’m standing in this crossed path. I have everything in my hand to choose one good path; some first-author publications and ongoing grants to pursue an academic career, some good portfolio and recommendations to pursue a commercial industry position for life or any other good thing that I could be. I am so privileged with a supportive husband, closest friends, and advisors. Financially and mentally stable at this young age, nothing I could ask for more. But I know that life can change easily in one finger snap. So this is my insecurity, asking if it is time to take only one path and be fully dedicated to it, or not take any and be a generalist for the rest of my life?

I don’t know. Lately, I have taken an extra day off on Friday so I can have time on my own to watch my favorite crime dramas or just pick out clothes that I’d like to donate. Thinking that, sometimes, being a stay-at-home wife would not hurt for a year or two. There are so many things that I like to do, but it’s hard to find that I really like that I would willingly spend my entire life doing it. My childhood dream was to be a detective and a data-driven strategist, and it has been fulfilled every single day. Finding the exact problem and trying to solve the puzzle. This has been enough. But as silly as it be, the puzzle and questions of life are even harder to be solved.

For example, a major question I’d like to find the answer to is whether it’s time to be back home or not. Bali offers a lot; peace, slow life, and the privilege of having a house within 10 minute drive from beaches or mountains. In Bali, I learned the importance of work-life balance for the first time in my life. But two years of the pandemic, limiting my activities showed me that being close to people I dearly care about is more important. It’s so sad to be absent from all your best friends' weddings or their big day, it really is. My younger version, who traveled around the world alone, wouldn’t understand this, but as I watch my parents and friends getting older, distance is becoming one major consideration. I visited a long-time high school best friend, who picked me up from the airport when my mom died, and now is pregnant. It’s such a shame that I missed her wedding (well, she missed mine too, but because her father passed away on the exact same day), but I actually don’t want to miss it when she’s giving birth. 

Is this the right time to go back to where I truly belong?

There are more and more questions in my head, and I failed to find the answer… will I be a good mother? Or will I be a strongly committed person to marriage as it is portrayed in Netflix’s documentary “My Love”? Will everything be fine with continuous climate disasters and disease evolution? Will I be able to be there when my Dad is on his deathbed, not like when my Grandpa passed away some months ago?

Long faces after a long flight and train journey just to visit our beloved family and friends

After spending 3 weeks around my family in Central Java and the Capital, I felt homesick for my house in Bali, not because it’s Bali -- because it is my home, where I have my life with my husband and a grumpy cat. Had this house been located anywhere else, it would have felt the same. 

And in that Terminal 3, the biggest but coldest terminal in Soekarno Hatta, I said to myself, there will be a time I won't be here again waiting for my flight to Bali. Weird because that felt fine. Maybe, all the answers to my questions - it’s just about time. By the time it happens, I would lead myself towards the door - and I know it would be myself alone. Because what I know is there is no one in this world that has the answer to all our questions except ourselves. What makes it maybe different is that we have another hand to hold, and it’s comforting.