As a person who’s trying my best to understand myself, I listed all the things that I like — or maybe the things that make me feel alive, or the things that make me feel like I’m the happiest version of myself.
I love having control over what I want to do, where I want to go, what I want to eat, what and who I want to manifest, and whom I want to meet or be friends with or fall in love with. I love talking with people, making new friends, and listening to their stories. If you are one of my friends, you may have noticed that I have made friends in the weirdest ways, the most plot-twist methods to become friends with someone. I can get along and joke around just fine with a food stall man in 1726 above sea level mountain, have a conversation with a medical resident during my way back down from the mountain, and have a nice habit of replying to each other’s stories with a rental car driver, or even with a physics professor whom I was stuck within a tunnel because of heavy rain during our jogging. Mas mas penyetan deket kampus inget aku sebagai mba mba yang pesen sambel bawang 5 porsi. I don’t need to order in my school canteen karena Ibu ibu kantin inget menu andalan di kampus. I realized that each person has their own story to tell and a specific event that we remember them at, from a food stall man, a driver, a physics professor, mas mas yang nguleng sambel di warung, and the lady who sells in the canteen.
I also love how I can get along with their stories and keep the conversation going without having me check out my phone several times because of boredom or just not understanding what they are talking about. I also love how curious I can get about something silly, like: How do you build an underground MRT? How do you build a skyscraper building? How do you prevent tall buildings not falling apart during earthquakes? How do you provide information for people who live in apartments to evacuate themselves during a fire or earthquake? How do you calculate electromagnetic fields or things like that? How…? How…? Or, why do we have to open the plane windows during takeoffs and landings? Why do we have to stow our tray table during takeoffs and landings? Why…? What is inside Petronas Twin Towers? How long were the KL tower or any tall towers built?
I love ballad songs, lyrics, words from books, inspiring speeches, kalimat yang tidak explisit, yang maknanya tidak tersirat langsung tapi bisa diinterpretasikan ke berbagai macam arti sesuai dengan sudut pandang orang yang membacanya. I love affirmative words and deep conversations. I’m a sucker for supportive, positive, and affirmative words. No one knows how I put stars on each of my friend’s messages in the chat room whenever they give me warm words or just words that understand me. I love getting news from someone about their days, I love midnight random talks and unending conversation.
I love city rides, I love getting lost. I love getting in a car and just driving away anywhere I like and getting lost. I love riding and walking around the cities. I love city lights. I get excited quickly when the rain touches the road and glows alongside the touch of the city lights and how the camera of my phone cannot even get a clear picture of its beauty. I love skyscraper buildings and think that there are great minds inside those buildings. Maybe, great and humble minds, who are willing to spare their time for a trip around the city using public transportation and have a chat over dim sum downtown.
Out of all those things that I love, I realize how I love that I’m very sentimental about all the little things that I love. I have a photographic memory and remember easily; streets, roads, highways, routes of busways, scents, tastes of food, and clips of memories that neatly store in my brain I don’t know how I can remember all those things. I remember people I meet, I remember people I converse with, I remember how they looked, what they talked about that time, even if only a little, but I remember them. I remember the walkways from one place to another.
There are many things that can spark memories, feelings, and nostalgia. I can just drive around the cities and remember a particular person. I can travel to another country yet it will still bring the moment of joy during my stay there and all the people who I interacted with. I can visit a train station or spray a specific perfume and a memory can spark in my head like a firework in New Year. There can be a song that when I listen to it, still gives me the same pain as last year.
At last, I feel relieved that I’m writing this. This is just another way of myself saying that I truly understand myself, what I really love, and what I don’t prefer.
See you in funny papers, Jakarta. Maybe next year I will be one of those who chooses you as my favorite city.
