Unrequited Love

Nearing the end of the year now and quite frankly, I think I have not achieved anything significant. Although there is one important lesson I learned this year about myself and about love.

So I fell in love earlier this year. It was actually nothing, it began when I was looking for a new friend in one chat app I found on Play Store, and we really did become friends. Quite close too, I may say. It's just that because it's a stranger that you're almost certain will never meet in short time, and who doesn't really know you, they tend to be less judgmental about you and you feel like you can tell them anything. So I did. I told him everything, we talked everyday, from mundane things like the weather to the important things like GPA (this is important right?) and family. He was an excellent listener and responder; I always feel better after telling him my stories. Also maybe we flirted a little, but it was just teasing.

As days went by, slowly but surely, he started to fill my mind every time, I could not stop thinking about him; I started to have that kind of anxiety where you check your phone constantly for his message and so on. Long story short, I may have fallen in love with him by then, in a sense that I started to feel giddy when thinking about him, that his voice and message makes me so happy, keeping his picture, and the love songs started to actually make sense. I, for once in my life, have never fell in love harder than that. And it's driving me crazy, because to be honest, what could I possibly do? It's like falling in love with completely fictional character but worse, because the fictional character was, well, fictional, while this is a real-life person that I can actually meet if I fly 9,500 miles away from where I was. The fact that there was a slight chance that we could be together is killing me.

But of course, it's not that simple. The love was simple; it was easy, unconscious, unintended, and natural. The implications of that love were what makes it difficult. There were differences, barriers, that kept my love at bay. And what was exactly the purpose of this love? To unite us together? Was this love strong enough to actually overcome those obstacles? I wouldn't lie, that would be the most wonderful thing if it actually happens, but it was very, very unlikely. I had gone thinking about the possibilities of our future and how we might cross paths in the future, in person, and fall in love properly, and move in together and get married and have babies, but then I forgot the most important question, does he want this too? What does he actually feel about me, does he feel the same or not? I know it might sound stupid because all the things I imagined would have to involve both persons, so I decided to find out.

I plucked up the courage to actually ask him about this. Not in a brutally honest way, as I thought would be uncomfortable to talk about, but carefully slipping it into one of our everyday conversations. It worked. Kinda. And the answer was actually what I had suspected, he didn't feel the same way about me. He simply didn't see us as a couple, but as very great friends who sometimes fool around. Ouch.

Of course I didn't tell him about how I feel. So we stayed friends after that. Only the frequency of our conversations had declined, but this has happened since before I popped the question so I highly doubt that's the cause. I think he may simply be bored with me, just like getting bored of your old friends. We've known too much about each other already, sometimes we ran out about things to talk about. And it was getting old actually, it's been a couple of months of constantly, daily talking about (mainly) unimportant things, so he must have gotten bored or tired of me. And for me, dealing with this situation was very new and I actually got quite depressed over unrequited love for a couple of weeks. There were even times when I would just randomly cry, not minding the people around me. That was literally the worst depression I have ever had my entire life. Maybe I should refer to it as 'The Great Depression' to make it all more dramatic. But seriously, it was that bad.

Took me a couple of months to compose myself and get back to my feet again. I finally moved on. Or so I thought. It's just that I have loved him so deeply, it felt impossible for him to not love me back. Like it's impossible for Mercury to not feel the warmth of the sun. He was Mercury and I was the Sun, that's how I imagined it. But after some deep thinking, I decided maybe he was Pluto, freezing cold in the darkness, so far from the Sun, only staying in its place merely because of the weak gravitational force from the faraway tiny dot of light. However great and warm the Sun's love was, it meant nothing to Pluto.

During the course of our friendship/pseudo-relationship, I have learnt that I am capable of a very great love. The love I felt for him was incomprehensible, not making any sense, yet it was there so unfathomably vast and ruled over my heart. There was nothing I wouldn't do to make him feel the same way, but the fact was, the was nothing I could do that was still within borderline of sanity. I also learnt that rejection of love is very very painful, however civilized it was done. The fact that such great a feeling does not reciprocate was mind boggling to my brain. But that's reality, we can't all be winners, as he once said. So maybe I should just try to cope with the truth that he was one of the things in life that I cannot win. But I should not lose hope, because maybe, there is someone out there who has a love even greater than my sun-love and is willing to share it with me, and I desperately hope that I am able to receive his love with an open arm and with all my heart. Who knows he's probably just around the corner. Who knows.

A Success Within a Failure

Sebenarnya banyak yang ingin saya tuliskan di sini. Tapi pengalaman mengajarkan, kalau menulis terlalu banyak, ujung-ujungnya gak selesai, masuk draft, dan gak tersentuh lagi, akhirnya gak ter-publish dan cuma jadi bangkai tulisan yang menuh-menuhin draft. Kayak bayi yang keguguran. Udah makrosomia, keguguran pula. Sedih amat.

Saya cuma mau cerita tentang CBT terakhir ini. CBT terakhir saya kemarin adalah CBT terjelek saya sepanjang saya kuliah di sini. Saya sungguh berharap supaya tidak ada lagi nilai CBT yang seperti itu. Cukup sekali ini saja. Tapi yang ingin saya tekankan kali ini bukan tentang nilai saya yang jelek, tapi cerita tentang bagaimana saya menghadapi dan mempersiapkan CBT kemarin.

CBT saya dilaksanakan Jumat, 22 November 2013 pukul 9.00 - 11.00. Sebelum hari itu tiba, dari hari Senin sebenarnya kami sudah tidak ada jadwal kuliah lagi. Seharusnya banyak waktu untuk belajar kan? Seharusnya. Idealnya begitu. Ditambah lagi dua hari sebelumnya adalah Sabtu dan Minggu, jadi tambah banyak waktu belajarnya.

Tapi teman-teman, ternyata tidak sesimpel itu. Somehow, banyak sekali amanah yang harus dikerjakan minggu itu. Ditambah RnR di hari Selasanya. Ditambah ngedit soal yang sampe sekarang pun belum selesai. Singkat kata, belajar saya keteteran.

Sebenarnya kalau mau jujur, waktu-waktu itu seharusnya cukup untuk melakukan semuanya dengan baik. Tapi seperti biasa, saya dihancurkan oleh manajemen waktu saya yang kacau balau. Bila kau gagal merencanakan, berarti kau sedang merencanakan kegagalan. Hal itulah yang tepat saya alami kemarin. Saya benar-benar menyadari sepenuhnya bahwa saya sudah gagal mengatur waktu saya, saya gagal mengefisienkan sedikit waktu yang saya miliki untung segudang amanah tersebut. Dan bahkan, saat waktu ujian tiba, belum semua lecture saya review lagi. Jadilah saya CBT bermodal nekat. Alhasil, nilainya terjun payung.

Tapi saya tidak bermaksud menyalahkan segala kegiatan nonakademik saya. Tentu rasanya ingin menemukan kambing hitam yang bisa disalahkan, tapi kalau saya jujur terhadap diri saya, menyalahkan amanah adalah hal yang tidak adil. Sekarang saya cuma ingin menyampaikan, saya tidak shock mendapat nilai segitu. Saya merasa pantas. Seseorang akan mendapatkan apa yang diusahakannya. Kalau usahanya kecil, mustahil dapat hasil yang besar. Menanam biji cabai tidak akan menumbuhkan pohon durian (?)

Kadang-kadang, saya masih memperlakukan Tuhan dengan seenaknya. Di saat-saat genting menjelang ujian, ibadah saya meningkat sekali. Saking hopeless-nya, dan udah gak ada lagi yang bisa nolong kecuali Allah. Pun di saat kita sudah meminta dan memohon pertolongan, tapi Allah belum kasih, itu bukan berarti Allah tidak menyayangi kita. Justru sekarang saya merasakan kasih sayang Allah yang begitu besar dengan tidak memberikan saya nilai yang baik. Saya merasa Allah ingin mengajarkan saya bahwa saya salah, tidak seperti ini seharusnya seorang pejuang ilmu, bukan seperti ini seharusnya saya mengatur waktu saya, dan kalau saja saya disukseskan pada ujian kemarin, tidak kecil kemungkinannya saya akan meremehkan ujian-ujian berikutnya, dan tidak melakukan perbaikan terhadap manajemen waktu saya. Lalu masa depan saya akan semakin wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey gara-gara manajemen waktu yang payah.

Selain itu, saya merasakan di saat-saat genting kemarin, di saat saya sedang melakukan pendekatan intensif kepada Allah, di situ saya merasakan kebahagiaan yang akhirnya mengisi kekosongan dalam hidup saya. Saya menemukan kebahagiaan dalam ketaatan. Saya sudah mempersiapkan diri saya untuk kegagalan ini. Jadi ada satu kesuksesan dari kegagalan saya kemarin: saya sukses menyiapkan diri saya menghadapi kegagalan. Dari kedekatan saya yang intens dengan Allah kemarin, Allah menganugerahkan saya ketenangan dalam menghadapi kegagalan ini. Tumben banget lho gue gak shock atau down ngeliat nilai segitu. Pokoknya saya bertekad supaya hal seperti ini tidak terjadi lagi. Saya tidak boleh menyia-nyiakan amanah yang Allah berikan kepada saya untuk menuntut ilmu, juga amanah orang tua saya, nenek saya, dan yang terpenting, amanah ummat untuk menjadi seorang dokter yang baik.