Here Today, There Tomorrow

Well, mine was sleeping alone.

I remembered sleeping together with my mom, dad and my four little brothers in one bed every night. Some kids slept parallelly with my parents, others would be sleeping above their heads and others below their feet. Any sparse area would be filled with mom and dad as the center. 

When I was 4, our bodies grew bigger and the bed didn’t fit us anymore. So, my dad placed another bed in the bedroom, for me and one of my brothers. They arranged those beds lengthwise, so we could sleep head to head with my parents. Every night, they put the two of us in the bed and at midnight, my brother would move back to my parents bed and left me alone. I could’t sleep afterwards, the only thing that would put me back to sleep was my dad’s outstretched hand from their bed, holding my hand all night long.

While I was in elementary and middle school, my biggest anxiety was merely undone homeworks and pop quizzes. 

Growing up as a teenage, I was active and involved in many school activities but deep inside, I was the shy girl who never felt good enough about herself. I didn’t fit in any group therefore I would be the one standing alone at the edge of the field after a traditional dance rehearsal, or I would diffuse in the crowd with no one to talk to. I always felt so much behind the conversation. Perhaps, I was the nerdy girl among the social butterflies. 

The anxiety of being in the crowd grew deeper when I was in college. I didn’t know how to start a conversation and keep it up without a boring silence. Attending community made me tired instantly and being alone recharged me. I enjoyed the company of closed friends but not for a long time. 

As I grow older, I realized that all these years, I only worried about the present. I only worried about what made me comfortable and what not. I never thought of the past and the future.

I should become more certain and braver by now, as I age, but in fact, many more things thrill me. A pitch dark room scares me no more, I have no more homeworks and exams that will keep me up till dawn yet I have trouble sleeping and hesitation to decide.

I never know that the past can be so scary, let alone the future. Failures haunt me and everytime I try to start anew, the thought will play in my head on and on like a broken cassette. But if I don’t move on, if don’t push myself, if don’t challenge myself, what will I be?

I know what I want in life, it’s just that I’m too scared to fail again, till one day I picked this random book from a book shelf in Gramedia, 99 Wisdom by Gobin Vashdev. I fell in love with the way he elaborates his thought about life into encouraging words. And the one that I hold on to these days is

I think, I’ve been trying to carry too much baggage and it’s about time I will stumble upon it. So, I need to let go and travel light. 

I need to do what I need to do without too much worrying about the outcome, stop trying to control everything, anticipate every options and surrender the rest to Divine Intervention.