Comfort Zone

"...I don't know, Karina. How do I leave my comfort zone?"

"Well, just look at me – seven thousand miles away from home. Away from my comfort zone."

"Yeah, but you've made another comfort zone, didn't you."

Did I?

This is my room.

My sanctuary. The place to rest. The place I can be sane. Away from people: friends or strangers. Away from all the stress-inducing linguistic problems. No one to please, nothing to fear.

Yes, this might be the 'other comfort zone' as aforementioned. (Thanks Snorlax.) I didn't realise that this room – once was as foreign to me as bagged milk is to non-Canadians – had transitioned so smoothly that I didn't get to notice, to my second comfort zone. Has anyone told you that one can have so many, only if we want to?

Only if we stop longing for the ones we've left behind?
Only if you take time to realise that your old comfort zone, is no longer there.

I kept on looking around this space.
I wonder if it's time for me to leave.

"...I mean, what are you going to do if you're going back home, anyway? What are you going to do here? I swear to God, if you do it, in the span of you staying here for what–6 months–I will most certainly not see you. At all."

Feigning Ignorance

It was during one evening; specifically on Easter night. Five individuals were chattering in a language I do understand but have yet to speak in. For that inadequancy I slowly drifted off, and as my brain began to wonder, I started on contemplating life.

How did I get here?

I remember going on a plane. I remember spending a mere half an hour in Dubai as a stopover before heading to Amsterdam. I remember coming out of the arrival gate, wearing a navy blue sweater and faded grey jeans, carrying the pieces of my life I can bring along in form of heavy suitcases. I remember seeing my cousin. I thought about how I haven't seen her in years, and how in the few times she was around, I don't think I was old enough to remember her well. We are seven years apart. She was always "the cousin that lives abroad"; in the same retrospective, I was always "the little sister who is too little to hang with".

She was standing metres away, but I could already see her eyes tearing up as soon as she caught a glimpse of my mom and I. She must've missed my mom. I remember hoping earnestly that she was excited for me, for my arrival, knowing that I would be living with her for the next four years, which is simply a risk, really. I was moving. I, basically, moved out from my home of 18 years in Jakarta and moved in to my new home in Maassluis. Me and my 30 kilograms worth of a suitcase.

I remember walking through the unfamiliar roadways in my skin-coloured wedges, in which now I understand why my cousin got a little bit perplexed when she had seen those. It was fall, and it's only logical for me to be wearing a more covering footwear. I wouldn't know. I had no clue. I was completely unaware how different things were going to be.

Snapping back into reality, I'm sitting here, realising how big was the decision that I have made, and how different my life would be if I were to choose another path. I realised that I was trying not to think about it too much. I realised how hard I was trying to take it easy, as if it's not a big thing to study abroad, when actually I was doing something that changed everything for me. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it because I know how forlorn I can be when faced with too big of a situation. I could've broken down several times; I could've cancelled everything on the last minute. It was hard, even though it didn't seem to be, for me, to face the reality.

And for that, I feigned ignorance.

When in Bruges.

Last August I went to Bruges, a city in Belgium. Located in the northwest of the country, the city is a two-hour car ride from Rotterdam, where I live in Holland.

Last year, I gave you the photos I took when I was there.
This time round, I want to take you along on the trip.

On people moving out of town.

When a friend of yours is leaving your home country, it feels like they are going to leave your life forever. Even when you still hear from them. Even when they do come back at times. I'm not sure if it's about the lack of communication or the fact that they are practically living a new life that it feels like they have left you.

Even if it's just for a year.

A she, who is an old friend since elementary school, who was close to you, as close as twins could be - people do actually mention that you two do look alike. Alas, the two of you grew apart, without you knowing why.
Several years gone by, and you've heard that she went abroad. Hearing that, you were puzzled by your own feeling, questioning "Why do I feel like I've lost her?".
Another year gone by, and she came back. Did you find the answer to the question? No -- it multiplied. "Why is she different?" "What happened to her?" "Why isn't she the same person that I've once known nine years ago?"
She is not the same her. Neither is him. They have become slightly, unknowingly different.

The feeling of losing someone you'd never thought you'd feel bitter upon losing.