Wow, it’s been more than a year in Melbourne! Here’s the voice of the insecure side of me, I feel weird in the past few days. It is started two days before Eid, I was upset to my BFFs because they don’t really care about how important Eid is to me. I think this might be a common misunderstanding; friends from different part of the worlds, especially those who do not observe religious belief or practices in the same manner will be indifferent to the meaning of Eid. The more I think about it, I might be upset because of other things, but it is just easier to put the blame on others, especially to those who are close to me. I have been stressed out about my research project -I just got an email that Mark (my favourite lecturer will assist me in this project, I should be thankful because he is easy to speak to and I have a good impression about his last class I attended), I have mixed feeling about the field trip unit because I am not sure my company will cover the travel expanses to Sydney, so in the worst-case scenario, I have to pay for everything myself, which is sucks! However, I wish everything will run well, I am looking forward to visiting different media companies in Australia though. This can be a good opportunity to see how media companies operate here.

Back to my insecurity issues, right after Eid prayers and gathering, I went home directly. I was thinking of attending a halal-bihalal with Konjen, but I changed my mind at the last minute because I did not feel like traveling to Brighton. Ugh, my mind keeps changing all the time. I do not know if it is a girl thing or it is simply because I cannot follow through my initial decision. What came through my mind later that day is what inspired me to write this up.

Eid is supposedly a day where people mingle with family, friends and relatives. My grandmothers and grandfathers lived in Jakarta, so we did not have any particular hometown to visit or ‘mudik’.  However, the tradition in my family is not much different from the others.  When I was still young, my parents, my brothers and I were spending Eid out of town. Dad would have driven the car to Purbalingga, Kebumen, Yogyakarta or Bali to visit our relatives. He loves driving and visiting families or friends. My parents believe that it is important to keep in touch with people simply because they are very sociable and love the company of others (unlike me!). So even though I do not feel comfortable with all the visits we did, I could not express my disagreement. I know it is good though because I will be able to tell apart the family relation but I just do not have the ‘social genes’ my parents and brother have. Most time I do not want to be bothered with this stuffs and yes, I am a socially awkward person. As I get to know myself better, I accept my condition, but I can tell that my family ignore this fact and do whatever they want because they think it is the best thing for me. So all this time, I put up with all the things they want me to do. There were this one moment when I spoke up and had disagreement about coming to Yogyakarta with my family for a random trip. As a result, my brother and dad were giving me hard time. We did not speak for a couple of days and my brother was bad mouthing me on his social media account. I was so upset I blocked him.

Now that I am studying overseas, I have the freedom I have always wanted; a life of my own where I can decide anything for myself without considering people’s feeling. I can always change my mind about doing or not doing something and it is okay because I am on my own. After Eid prayers and gathering, I just went home and I slept. I do not have any obligation to visit anyone and no one is expecting me, so I can completely shut myself off from people when I do not feel like interacting with them. What an ideal world of mine! What is missing then? I miss not being all by myself, I want a person to snuggle with and be weird together. Now that I confessed that, this might be the root of my resentment and anger this past few days. Pfft, one last semester and then I am going back to Jakarta. I am feeling sad already. I want my study to finish, but I do not want to go back to Indonesia yet :-(