I Can’t Tell

 

I was doing just fine being alone after 2021 which was probably the darkest period of my life, but I got through it on my own. I wasn’t lonely, just alone, and those are two different things that people don’t always realize. Being alone is intentional beacuse it gave me silence, control, and room to breathe. I didn’t have to explain myself or be emotionally available all the time. I slowly got used to it and at some point, it even felt normal. People around me didn’t really understand that tho. Because some looked confused and others felt sorry for me like something bad happened or something is missing in my life. But I never felt like I was lacking anything. I wasn’t missing a person, I wasn’t chasing connection, and I wasn’t waiting for someone to fix me.

That way of living lasted for years. I learned how to care about people without really connecting to them or get too attached to them. I listened, I tried to understand, and I even showed up when needed, but there was always a distance. I wasn’t being cold, I guess I'm just kinda guarded?

Emotional detachment became normal for me, almost automatic, and for a long time, it worked.

It really did. Crazy right? right.. crazy indeed

 

Everything changed when I met this one person. Without realizing it, I started being myself around him. I didn’t feel the need to hide my darker side or pretend parts of my past didn’t exist. For the first time in a long time (outside of my mother and the friends I grew up with), I genuinely cared about someone like this. He saw me as I am, not the version I usually show to other people and I saw him the same way. He felt like the older brother I never had, someone I could trust, lean on, and feel understood by. Somewhere along the way, he became someone who truly mattered to me. I don't even know how.

Now... when I’m on my own, everything feels different. The kind of loneliness I remember from 2021 (the one I truly believed I had already survived) quietly finds its way back. It still surprises me every time. I never thought I’d feel this again. Not because my life suddenly lacks of something, but because now I know what it feels like to be truly understood. Don't get me wrong, I feel blessed, I really am.

Thank God for bringing us together and for letting me experience a connection this real. But at the same time, it also scares me. The idea of depending on someone, of having a person to miss, of realizing that the silence now carries a name and a face. Let me ask you something, could you imagine being so used to standing on your own and suddenly knowing how it feels not to? Because I do now. Once you’ve felt that kind of connection, being alone is no longer just solitude for me, it becomes loneliness, and I’m still trying to figure out what that means for me.

You all know I’m a cinephile, right? So lately I’ve been watching Dexter. Looking back at season one, I feel like I’m only starting to understand what Dexter really feels. Not the killing or butchering people stuff, obviously. But that constant need to hide parts of yourself just to seem normal around other people. It hits different too now everytime I rewatch any scenes where Brian is with Dexter. Brian accepts Dexter in a way no one else does, he doesn’t need explanations for his actions, he doesn’t pressure him to change, and he doesn’t demand him to be normal. Brian is just as messed up as Dexter, and he sees him as he is. Watching that, I finally get Dexter when he loses Brian. Once someone knows the parts of you that you usually keep hidden, being alone stops feeling good.

Well.. I just hope I can still enjoy my own company like I did before and that part of me who enjoy being alone without feeling lonely can come back anytime soon, so I can feel whole again.

This Is What Greed Looks Like When It Rains

 

For the past few weeks, Sumatera (Specifically Aceh) has been drowning, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not there. I’m not standing in the water, holding onto a roof or carrying what’s left of my life in a waterproof bag or anything. I’m just watching from a screen and somehow, even that feels so heavy. Seeing people and animals scramble to save themselves and their families does something to you. I may not be living their reality but I recognize the pain. Some suffering doesn’t need firsthand experience to be understood. You just know when something is deeply wrong.

There was one video I couldn’t get out of my head. A man crying while searching for his wife, calling her name again and again. At some point, he stopped. Not because he stopped loving her, but because he believed she was already gone. Now, all he wanted was to find her body so he could give her a proper burial. That was his final wish. In the middle of chaos, loss, and shock, he was still thinking about dignity. About respect. About love. It hurts me a lot.

For the first time, I found myself fully blaming the government. This flood wasn’t just about heavy rain or “unpredictable” weather like people keep saying. Experts from universities such as UGM and IPB have explained that deforestation played a huge role here. Forests that used to absorb rain are gone. Trees were cut, land was trimmed, and when the rain finally came, there was nothing left to protect the people living there. But sure, let’s keep calling it a natural disaster, it sounds cleaner and makes avoiding responsibility a lot easier.

I’m angry, like genuinely angry at the people who keep making money off environmental destruction. But I'm honestly more kinda confused? Yeah, I’m just so confused man. What are you people actually thinking when you do this? Or are you only thinking in terms of numbers and profit you'll make out of it? This feels like capitalism at its worst form. forests turned into profit for a small group of rich people, while the people and animals who live nearby the forests lose the very things that used to protect them, the shade to protect them from the burning sun, the clean air, the feel of safety. Finally when disaster hits, it’s never people who's sitting in air-conditioned offices who feel it first. It's the people down there.

It’s not just humans who ended up paying the price. Animals suffer too, Shame on you heartless people. they're creatures with no voice, no choice, no way to explain their fear. They run until they can’t. They drown. They disappear. There are no rescue teams looking for them, no compensation, no headlines. Most of the time, they’re not even mentioned. They just lose their homes. I’m tired of seeing this over and over again. How did we get so used to this? How did this become something we just accept? It's so stupid.

Do you know what makes me want to throw up? It's watching certain public figures from the governments show up at disaster sites like it’s part of a routine. They come, take photos, record videos, say a few comforting words, and then leave once everything is documented. What are you? A freaking joke.

Meanwhile, local people who have lost so much feel grateful for them, making them feel like heroes. I can’t stop thinking about how unfair that is, because so many of these disasters are connected to decisions they made, far away from the people who now have to deal with the consequences. It’s hard not to feel bitter watching that.

How can they not think this through??? How can they keep making choices knowing exactly who will suffer in the end??? People in Aceh lose their homes, their safety, their loved ones. Animals lose everything. What freaking hurts me the most is how predictable this all feels. We act shocked every time, but deep down we all know goddamn well that this didn’t come out of nowhere.

Now, watching it happen again, I just feel so exhausted and sad. I keep remembering something I once heard "if we take care of nature, nature will take care of us." and right now... it feels like we forgot that completely. Because if this keeps going, what exactly are we left with when there’s no earth to live on? This is our only home. I can’t imagine where we’re supposed to go next, unless someone truly believes money and power can replace a place to live. This is pathetic.

WAKE THE HELL UP PEOPLE!!

I've Been Gone for a Month, Let’s Talk About It

Okay, I still don’t know how to explain that day without sounding stupid, but here we go...

It was early November, right in the middle of midterm season, and my campus uses computer-based tests with the screen shared + webcam always on, so the pressure was already high. If I remember correctly, it was the second day of exams, I came home feeling completely tired, and when I say tired, I mean like the brain-empty, soul-tired. I’ve been handling way too many things besides studying for exams. I was making a small research piece for my application to be a writer for Abigail and the WIUI team, getting ready for my duties as a committee member for the RLF 2025 event in Surabaya and Bromo, and on top of that, a bunch of people kept coming to me for help with their personal stuff.

OH BY THE WAY... I actually got interviewed directly by Abigail herself, and man… I stutterd a lot and I was sweating too because I lowkey couldn’t believe she was the one interviewing me. At that point, I genuinely forgot what “free time” even feels like. God knows when I’ll ever get one again hahaha…haha…ha :(

And then, out of all the unlucky options life could’ve thrown at me, my laptop decided to betray me. It fell and the worst part is I wasn’t even near it so I don’t know how it fell or what cause it? and even though it was protected inside a bag, it still ended up with a broken fan and a cracked body. I just stood there staring at it like “Great. Perfect. Amazing. How am I supposed to take the exam for tomorrow?”

I called my classmate, the one who just bought a new laptop because her old one died, hoping she’d magically have a solution for me. But of course, laptops don’t just spawn out like that LOL. I tried asking around, seeing if someone had an extra one, but everyone only owns one. Obviously.

The worst part is that I really really love this laptop. I wanted it to stay with me until my master’s degree. So seeing it break at the exact moment I needed it the most was frustrating. When I called my mom, she said something that hasn’t left me since:

“If something is meant to die, it will, no matter how well you take care of it.”

For some reason, that made it easier to accept… or at least pretend to.

The next day I went to campus with absolutely zero expectations and painfully with no laptop in my bag. I explained everything to my lecturer and asked if I could take the exam on paper, thankfully they allowed it. That small act of kindness felt huge at the time. After the test, my mom told me to just buy a new laptop and said she’d help with the budget. I swear that night I instantly became a full-time tech researcher. I had a hundreds of tabs open comparing specs, watching reviews, etc. But y’know in the end, I just couldn’t do it. I know that this might be hella risky but I chose to repair my old laptop instead, even though not everything could be fixed. I guess that’s how attached I am to this little machine that’s been with me through deadlines, stress, and way too many late nights. So when it finally turned on again, it genuinely felt like a resurrection. I was staring at the screen like it was a miracle and screaming “YES, my little guy is back” and in my head it felt less like a repair and more like that Darth Vader dramatic revival scene, heavy breathing, lights coming back on except instead of becoming a Sith Lord, my laptop just booted up and went back to suffering under my assignments XD

Now that it’s working (well, mostly), I can finally start doing things properly again, including writing this blog article. I just got back from Surabaya after being part of a committee for an event, so the past few weeks have been pure chaos. But now that I’m “home” in Bogor and life is starting to slow down a bit, I finally have the space to breathe… and write.

My next blog will probably be about Surabaya and Bromo whether it’s the fun parts, the messy parts, the weirdly meaningful parts, and everything I learned along the way. There’s a lot. So yeah…

stay tuned!