Pausing for a moment

It’s been eight long years I’ve been out, pursuing a dream 10,000 miles away from home. Eight years ago, my youngest sister, with her curly hair and pony tailed, was still wearing her white-and-dark blue junior school uniform. She couldn’t drive a car yet. My second-younger-sister was still in her senior high school. I still remember the way she comb her long wavy dark hair, giggling with her school friends who often visit our house. Those days seemed just yesterday. I can still remember vividly how we spent our weekends at the mall for windows shopping and having brown rice in front of Masjid Istiqomah. I missed those days, where life seemed so easy and beautiful.

Today is different. They are all grown up. My second sister is married to a guy that used to live in our neighborhood in central java 25 years ago. The youngest sister is still studying; she is in her senior year at one of Bandung’s private university. She really can drive now. Sometimes I regret that I was not the one who taught her how to drive since I was the one who taught her how to ride a bike.

Today, life seems so urgent, real, and provocative. There’s some level of urgency to find the meaning of life, to find the person whom I suppose to be. My dream is still the same even though it has evolved in someway giving priorities and importance adding spices to my life.

Most of my high school friends are married, having children and having a promising career. They seemed to already have found the purpose of life: the person whom they suppose to be. Their attitude may still the same when a bunch of us meet again at a coffee shop at the mall the other day. Some are still talkative and joke with their usual dry humor. However, behind their high school attitudes, clearly they are all progressed in a lot of ways. I feel proud for them. I’m really glad that I still have them as my good ol’ friends.

To me, tomorrow may still seem uncertain. But hey, that’s life all about right! That’s the art of living. We all know that the direction is nothing but up, but the trick is figuring out if we are climbing the ladder that leans on the right wall. I think it is time for me to pause for a moment and analyze if I am leaning on the right wall.

It’s been eight years. Everybody seems to have racing ahead of me. I somehow feel blinded with their dusts, but yet I’m pausing for a moment.

Yes, pausing. For a moment.