I Survived!

At the beginning of 2018, I made a promise to myself to try to open up more. Heck, I even wrote a blog post about it. Well, it turned out a lot harder than I had anticipated, but I think I did okay. However, when faced with tough situations, sometimes I still tend to bottle things up. I think of it as some sort of defense mechanism. It's how I try to survive. I know it's not the best way to deal with things, it's not healthy for my mental state, but I'm getting there.

I owe it a lot to my friends actually. They might not realize it, but they're the ones who have been keeping me sane. They make me not to get too caught up in my own world. We don't meet as often as we'd like to, but we have this group chat where we just randomly say hi and update what's going on in our lives. Mostly I was only a listener. Well, I still am. That's why I'm so, so thankful that they didn't give up on me. They kept asking how I'm doing. If it was 2017, I would most likely just say, "Ergh, I'm okay." But last year I found myself telling my friends (okay maybe just some of them) about these problems I had been dealing at work. And they listened, they gave great advice, and we all ended up encouraging each other. 

So, how did my 2018 go?

One word: challenging. I've been given a new responsibility at work, which until right now I'm still not confident at. There were projects that didn't go as well as I planned. They bummed me up, crushed my confidence (which wasn't too high in the first place!), and really made me question my competence. But surprisingly, things were still okay. People moved on. I moved on (although it took a long ass time). Of course, there were some consequences. But, here's the thing: there were times when I thought I would fail miserably, but then I just failed. Still failed, but at least not as miserably as I thought. And to me, that counts as an achievement.

I just hope that people won't give up on me. I hope they'll still have faith in me. God knows I still need to learn a lot. So, here's to 2019. I just.... want to be happier. That, and also maybe to give more efforts in putting myself first. Self-care, am I right?

P.S: John Mayer is coming to Indonesia this year! I'll tell more about this someday.

A Simple New Year Resolution

Not all people can easily open up about their problems. Some are scared. Some find it very uncomfortable. Some are afraid to appear as an attention-seeker. Some don't want to become a burden to other people. And I'm sure there are still many other reasons I couldn't think of.

So they choose to bottle things up.

I choose to bottle things up.

When things get much uglier, I even tend to push people away. I just.... don't want anyone to know about my struggles. I don't want people to think I'm not capable of handling things on my own. I don't want them see me as a girl who uses her problems to get attention. So I put up a good facade. And somehow it works, I guess. One of my good friends even said that I look so composed, like I have my life all figured it out.

God, if only she knew.

But now I am emotionally exhausted. I'm afraid if I don't start sharing about what's going on in my head, I'll lose myself. I'll lose my sanity. I'll explode. And I don't want that to happen. The good news is that I know my family and friends would like to help if I talked to them. That's why in 2018, I hope I have more courage to open up to people and seek supports from them. I know I'm not alone, I'll just have to try harder to reach out more. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, but it's worth to try.