shoesandtoes

[shoesandtoes]

Holiday almost over, yet..

All I've been doing is sleeping, watching movies, being a couch potato. I seemed to have no energy left to even go out and see the world. I hate that I've missed much chance to go here and there. But, I can't do anything about it.

Things get worse as I constantly comparing my life to my friends'. They're bloody luckier than me. They seem harmless but they have life, not like me. I feel like a loser.

I'm nobody, I'm nothing, I'm not special, even below average. My life's so goddamn boring. My life is the most boring one in the world.

[shoesandtoes]

Welcome to Big City

I just watched Last Night in Soho and something suddenly popped up my mind. Are big cities always that bad?

I mean, I've lived in a big city, even though it's far smaller than New York or London, but I think big city is not that bad -- if you have a lot of money.

Yes, big cities have lots to offer, its overflowed with anything you want or anything you've never thought that you want. You can find almost everything, no matter how bizarre or peculiar it may seem. I love to live in big cities, if I have a decent home to live in. I want to find one, but I don't have that much privilege.

What am I supposed to do? I find that big city suits me, at least. I don't have to get too engaged with many people, if I don't need to. It feels lonely every now and then, but, who fucking cares?

Maybe the reason I say that living in a big city is not as hard as it is portrayed in movies is that I've never been in commuter transports everyday. I just need to walk to my office for about 15 minutes. I just need to order online transport to go anywhere I don't know, and I never had to beg or be homeless for a certain period. Maybe my way to be in a big city is as easy as I can imagine. It's almost perfect as I ever imagined. Maybe if I encountered the same problem as those young ladies did, I would think that it's way too challenging for yokels to live in a big city. But fortunately, I didn't have to do that.

I miss the big city I've dreamed of since I was in college. It's not as fancy as Paris or Tokyo, but I just miss it. I want to explore more and more of it until I know every corner of it before the time I may finally have to say good bye to it -- forever.

[shoesandtoes]

When You Fall in Love

When you fall in love, the world seems to turn upside down, even arbitrary, and often like the oddest thing happens in your life.

When you fall in love, you cannot live without the one that you love.

The affection is there, right in a nook of your heart, untouchable yet pretty gentle and fragile.

Sometimes you have no idea when exactly that feeling comes to exist. You want to get rid of it but it is too late. It has rooted and even grows far greater, faster before you realize it.

When you fall in love, especially when love does not seem to be your thing, when you have been hurt and disappointed zillions of times, you are always wondering, will this be the same as the pain you’ve endured that still aching somewhere inside.

Or will this be the different one? The one you have been waiting for?

When you fall in love, sometimes you deny it. You deny it until you surrender to it, to the serenade humming in your head, to the face you can���t get out of your mind, to the romance fiction you gradually weaving in your brain, to the whatsoever scenarios you create if you are with the one.

Sometimes it is love at the first sight – something you always loathe. But now you cannot retrieve it, you cannot undo, no matter how unlikely the reality is. It is like “How come do I feel this way to that kind of person?”

You cannot scratch your back, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much time you spend to put aside that person in your head, no matter how many games you play, how hard you exercise to draw your energy, or how many places you walk in, or how many pills you swallow to cure your insomnia.

When all is done, when the game has ended, when your sweat dries out, when you come home, or when you wake up, that nook in your heart comes to live, blossoming, staring at you with mocking smirk.

In the end, you can finally let it be. You give it all to the time – the best healer so far. You will simply ignore it whenever it waltzes around you all day all night. You get to accept it as it is, as a process for.. I don’t know, maybe to prove that your heart has created immune system to that falling-in-love virus. You will learn to dance to it while admiring your person from afar, that you become so used to it you can see the blossom turns to a hibernating seed.  

[shoesandtoes]

Editing

I did aspire to be an editor when I was younger back then. I may still want to be an editor now, but not that bad. If I want it so bad I would do my utmost effort to be what I really desire. Otherwise, I do some “go with the flow” and let go of that thing. Sometimes I miss the time when I scrutinizing each writing, paragraph, words, and even each character on the screen, trying to fix anything that needs to be fixed.

Just like my life. Like ours. Most of the time, I, you-maybe – we edit every single chapter, every miscellaneous part, every nook and cranny of our story. Sometimes we even try to edit others’ sentences, punctuation, if not others’ passages. What do we edit?

Yes, we edit based on our own purpose, environment, our circle, just like publishing, we have our own standard. But sometimes we barely have standards because we’re too sick, too ignorant, or too lame to mind what we have to do. We just avoid and give up on something we think we’re not gonna make it. Then our job of editing is merely erasing unwanted parts of our life, of our.. pain, or at least, things that we think give us pain.

I have edited my dream of being an editor to be something else, then another, then changed my mind, staring blankly on the screen, then turn to be anyone, anything else, something quite different. Until now.

Now the question is, have I done my editing right? Who proofread my editing? I’m the writer, the editor, and the main character of my passage at the same time. Have I been fair enough and honest with my own writing? With my own thoughts, even with my feeling? How could I know that? Should I compare my writing to others’?

The best I can do is to keep on editing while looking for the most suitable publishing house for my piece.

Image: https://www.constant-content.com/content-writing-service/2017/10/11-tips-for-editing-your-own-writing/

[shoesandtoes]

On.. Solo Traveling

Hello. This is my first blogging since forever. Lately, I have too many things to do, too much time to spend for nothing, and countless unplanned plans.

This time I would like to share my thoughts about solo travel because the topic has been hovering around my drenched head like Tse Tse flies at the dessert. I once wrote about the topic years ago, but it was more like a travel note/documentary in another blog, which is now set as private.

Well, I’m a newbie in the solo travel thing and honestly, I sometimes feel embarrassed to think how foolish I was when I was a bit younger to do solo travel. Where the hell did the gut come from? I recall the time when I enjoyed myself while everyone else had fun with their friends or family. I might look pathetically lonely. However, I hopelessly needed some getaway from everyday business and I had no friends – so it did happen.

Truth be told, I needed some approval from others. My job sucked at the time, I felt like a douchebag and useless for doing thing I thought pretty superficial, everybody seemed like putting all blames on me whenever things went wrong. In short, I was a mess. I missed the time like when I was a college girl: trying to act smartly, the prestige of being a campus journalist, and managing to get sensible GPA. In short, I was haunted by an illusion that I am really someone. Turns out, I’ve been hallucinating and schizophrenic, showing off here and there but actually the here-and-there was merely in a tiny place right in the corner of my brain. Well, why did I need approval? Did I need or want?

Okay, I gave up. I wanted the approval. See? I was just practically a selfish single creature who wants the whole world to see that I can do everything on my own. Who the heck did I think I was? A goddess? Wonder bloody woman?

Recently, I watched a YouTube video entitled The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton from The School of Life. In the last minutes of the video, he talks about traveling alone. Starting from a late night motorist café, where some people stay up late on their own, having conversation with no one but themselves and the barista (to order some drink), he says on the video that it’s such a pleasure to be alone without being lonely. I agree that one of the most torturing moments of traveling alone is feeling that I’m the loneliest person on the planet while everyone else have a vacation with their loved ones.

But it can be a relief that I’m “a stranger among strangers.” I can relate what De Botton says, that being out of our habitat where no one knows us is somewhat relaxing. I forget what the reason he proposes, because I have my own opinion. I have flaws here and there, and I’m kind of an awkward person, I don’t know how to start a conversation, and I suck at almost everything. But being in a completely different atmosphere, I can be whatever I want. Well, I’m still that insignificant little person. But at least, I don’t have to get insomniac because of what other think or say, since I’m sure that the chance of us crossing path for more or recognizing each other when we accidentally meet in different occasion in the future is nearly zero. That kind of thing – being indifferent about other people’s judgment – is something that I can’t do when it comes to people I meet and see every day. I may think or get insulted when some strangers says bitter things to me, but it may last for only a second, because I am sure that we won’t meet again. The otherwise won’t happen if I encounter familiar faces.      

To conclude, I have no plan to travel, especially solo-travel for the time being. Now I’m trying to be more sensible and less impulsive in everything I do. I’m a thirty-something now, for God’s sake. I need to look through what really matters and profitable for me. I don’t loathe solo-travel, but if I have to do it later in my life, I’ve got to do it right.

 Image: https://www.silverkris.com/solo-travelling-women-fulfilling/