It’s so called life

Yay! I finally did it. My day 30^th was on Sunday, January 25^th.   I’ve been doing bikram yoga for almost fur years on and off, and that was actually my first time participating in the challenge and then made it through!  I am so happy and so far I just had to do double twice, not bad at all.  At the beginning my goal was to come to the class as much as possible, but later on after day 15 I felt that I could make it since it became an addiction.

“Ojek”  became the most important tool during my challenge, I could never made it through without it.  In fact my “ojek” ride was kind of my warm up for balancing and compression.  Imagine that!  Thanks to Ojek.

Now, that everything is over, I feel a bit empty, but hey, I’ll continue doing the yoga although it’s not gonna be everyday.  Hmm, still don’t believe it that I actually made it.

Happiness is your born right
You are Ma the moon
Accept who you are
Listen to your breath
Know your body
Know what you can
Etc ( I really can’t remember them all)

I heard a lot of those words in the Goddess workshop I participated on Sunday night.  Basically it was a Kundalini Yoga practice, yet the last night workshop was designated for women only.  

Almost all time we had our eyes closed so that we were only able to focus on ourselves.  It was fun coz at the end we had this session to dance following an Indian music rhythms.  Our movement while we were dancing was actually to spread the energy all over our body.  Yes since it was Kundalini yoga, we talked a lot of energy, mantra and chanting.  These are not kind of things that I could find in Bikram yoga.

Above all I had fun though coz it was kind of an intermezzo for my daily routine and a nice way to spend Sunday evening as well.

So, inhale and exhale – listen to your breath.

The other day when I was so excited telling a goofy friend of mine about my current dreams and desires, out of the blue he said; “I know, you want to do it badly because you thought you will die by the time you get 42” 

I was like, what ?

Then, also without thinking I replied “ No, because I want to live my life as today is my last day of living”

Is it?

There’s a hero
If you look inside your heart
You don’t have to be afraid
Of what you are
There’s an answer
If you reach into your soul
And the sorrow that you know
Will melt away

And then a hero comes along
With the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside
And you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you’ll finally see the truth
That a hero lies in you

It’s a long road
When you face your world alone
No one reaches out a hand
For you to hold
You can find love
If you search within yourself
And the emptiness you felt
Will disappear

Lord knows
Dreams are hard to follow
But don’t let anyone
Tear them away
Hold on
There will be tomorrow
In time
You’ll find the way

This is one of my favorite songs by Mariah Carey; very inspirative. Don’t know why all of sudden I have this song in my heart right now

Despite the world stock market crashed and off course its huge effect with my so little stocks ( may God save them all, so that I don’t get so poor), I managed to enjoy myself learning to practice batik making in “Museum Nasional” on Sunday.  A passionate woman called ibu Indra Tj organized this workshop for people who interested to see the process of “batik tulis”.

The workshop began with the presentation from Ibu Indra about batik in general; what kind of, how to make it and the philosophy behind it.  After that we were divided into 7-8 group, each had 5-6 people sitting in circle with a kind of stove made from used big tin placed in the middle.  The stove was to melt the so called “malam” ; it’s actually a mixing of bee wax and paraffin.  So, “malam” is applied to the cloth before being dipped in dye by using “canting needle”. 

It looked so easy cause you simply apply “malam” by following the pattern, however this was the most difficult part for me.  It took my greatest patience to actually finish it, eventhough it then did not come up so great.  I could see this from the face of the guy who taught us.  He was like so amazed  how my batik became.  I knew that he felt sorry for how so untalented I was.  Yet, I myself felt satisfied cause I was finally able to “mbatik”

The workshop ended after they showed us the dyeing process, and since we could not really do the final part there, they would send it to us by posts after the dye it for us. 

This was really a good get away to forget about the craziness out there.

It is hard to think that you already get enough.  Most people demand more than they can get.  Nowadays, blessing what you have is becoming more and more difficult; Honestly, I don’t know why.  Most of my friends around my age have become someone in their field, leading a good life with or without a beautiful family and living with fortune.  I’m happy for them and yet I’m happy for myself too for what I have become.

I always realize that I have to work it out in order to achieve what I want.  The question is how much and how big.  This question had never answered until 6 years ago when I left the company which gave me promises without realization, So, I thought it’s enough that was not what I wanted.  Growing with pains had thought me a lesson to accept what I have right now and just enjoy it. It is not always easy but surely it’s a lot peaceful rather than struggling to look for what I don’t have.

For some people maybe I sound like a person without any ambitions.  Well, they are not totally wrong because when it comes to my career I put aside that desire to achieve I don’t know what.  Instead I have a great desire to do things that I never thought I could.  This is the life that I am leading and I should be happy when I’m living it.

I am not a kind of person who lives and worships the past (even though I’m into past life regression stuff kind of person).  Yes, I do remember my past very well, especially those days in college.   It was the period of trying to find myself as a human being called Paulina, making lots of mistakes, doing stuffs some people might regret it later (well, I don’t).

My past, particularly during college time, is where usually my mind landed whenever I felt weary.  It usually gives me such a warm feeling and it feel like I am being hugged and comforted by giant hands.  Don’t get me wrong, as much as I like my life now, I have to admit it I really miss those days when I thought I was an adult; ready to make all decisions for myself, yet still doing irresponsible acts. 

So, lately as I’ve been missing my old friends very much, one of my good friends from college sent me a request to add her in the facebook.  After so many years of losing contact with her, I finally know how she is doing and through her I also caught up with other friends’ life.  By the time I graduated from college, email and internet were not so booming yet.  It was just the beginning of the internet era and not everybody had her/his own email account.  So it took more than a decade to reunite us through the facebook.

Still because of the facebook, I have been making a more intensive contact with one of my best friends from college who recently got her affection back towards this guy from college who we also found through the Facebook.  He used to be her greatest love of all and now all of sudden out of her desperately housewife life, she found herself madly fallen into the same excitement toward this guy just like in college.  No, she’s not trying to cheat on her husband, like me somehow when she was thinking about that particular past (for her definitely is this guy), she actually experienced the same feeling as back then; the feeling of being so innocence, so naïve, so youthful and so free.  It’s painful and depressed, yet it was also beautiful and meaningful.

Thanks to the Facebook for reuniting me with my past.
 

For all my friends from the past, I love you guys. Thank you for taking part in my beautiful time in college.Remembering the dark, windy, cold winter with hot chocolate and marshmallow on top and warm smiles from the friendly faces while I wrote this.