Journals

Last night I got a call from a guy I used to set my eyes on during my orientation days in the University of Indonesia in 2004, yes… four years ago. He is a friend of friend’s. Yeah… I know… last time I wrote up about an irony happened during the last few gloomy days; a friend of friend’s with whom I did not get in touch with for almost three years, came to my house with a phone payment slip, and a black-forest cake. And today: another friend of friend’s!

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A piece of puzzle of moment is still fresh in my mind… Four years ago, in the same building we – the high school fresh graduates, who were about to enter the university and had successfully passed its academic test – were gathered and grouped into several groups of work. I met a nice girl; she was one of members of the group I belonged to. I said to that girl that over there – about twelve meters away from where we had a sit – there was a nice-looking guy I liked to set my eyes on. She laughed and said “which one”, and I said “our ten o’clock direction, the tall one”. She laughed loudly. She said that he is her good friend, kind of an old friend of hers. She offered herself to introduce us. I laughed and refused her offer politely. I said; “Not now thanks, I’ll think it later though”. And we laughed. And the conversation about the ten-o’clock-direction guy did not go any further.

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And then for some weak reasons (lost interest or something) I left the University of Indonesia (some people were baffled by my decision at that time), and enrolled for another institution: a grade-A school of communications; LSPR – Jakarta; an English-speaking school, that is way less conventional and more multicultural, and that was “the most unexpected jump” for a 17-year-old green girl who had just started to use her intuitive ability. That was the best decision I ever made in 2004.

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Within the next few months after leaving the university, the ten-o’clock-direction guy contacted me. He said that he got my number from her old friend (Miss Nice). I was so happy at that time. And my happy feeling faded away with time that flied, with many people I met after that.

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Time flied. Until in the very early month in 2007, the ten-o’clock-direction guy re-contacted me. We met up somewhere around my previous work point (Sarinah building) on Thamrin road. He picked me up after work in the evening. At that time, before we really met face-to-face, I felt like I had no idea about how he looks like exactly, I mean, in such a very close distance. All things I can remember about him is not pretty much, well, he is tall, pale, and he stood in such a fearless posture and facial expression about twelve meters from where I had a sit with Miss Nice. At the first time, I felt like I was afraid that he would fool me, but then I thought; how about him? Did he have any idea about how I look like? Of course he did not, because the only one who stared at him for about twelve meters away from where he stood was me! Finally we met actually and decided to spend time at a place called “kost” where I used to stay for about three months during my probation time at work. We talked for almost four hours (or more?). He was normal, I mean, not that talkative and he’s not a kind of too-much-talking type, but also not that silent and awkward. Overall, he is good, and the only thing I needed in the evening was light. Yeah… I needed more light to help myself to re-call my memory on why I ever set my eyes on him amongst thousands of student gathered in the same building in 2004.

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And this year, Wednesday 2 July 2008, 10:56 PM, he gave me a call again. What a surprise! He was loud and funny (I think he was louder than last time I saw him). We talked about a few thing, about our friend; Miss Nice and what happened to her recently, about school, about my thesis, about teeth, about his old friend who studies dentistry, and injections that always scare him off, that he said better off he took pills rather than to let the dentist uses injections to kill the pain. Funny. We talked for about 20 minutes (or more?) and he said he would give me a call in the next days. He said that currently he got really busy with his football exercise. I said yeah sure, and before we ended the phone conversation, we had agreed to catch up in next few days. And that’s it.

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I wear my earphone back with the music played, lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Empty. And no, I was not thinking of that guy.

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From staring at the ceiling, I got nothing but the emptiness so that I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and listened to Picturebook, which I have been listening to for 1489 times until that night. There were so many things happened within these last two years. I have been too focused on my previous job, my thesis, new people I met during the years (but none of them is such a potential contact), and a wide scratch over my heart that is still new, red, and painful, and all these nonsense causations. Probably because of those things, I missed few centimeters of my “ruler of memory”. Now I feel that things are like blurred and everything’s like… I don’t know what to say… time runs… everything runs fast. And people… they are so disapointing. Once I had a single nice memorable moment with them, and the other days they made me upset, and that time I felt like the sky was razed down to the ground, and all I wanted to do is lying down in bed the whole day, with closed eyes and a silent cry, hoping that I have mastered my meditation so that I can manage my anger and breathe more comfortably with an empty mind. I wish I had much time to practice.

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I stared at my corny phone. This “guy” (yes, I think my mobile phone is a male) has been loyal to “his” master for about three years. I believe in balanced-energy-flow theory that says that I should let old negative memory going out to let the new positive coming in, so that I applied the theory on many things that other people might think not important, like, for example things that have something to do with phone. I start to stop keeping other’s phone numbers that I think I wouldn’t use any longer. So, I think it is good that the ten-o’clock-direction guy (and/or anybody else) still kept my phone number because I think I wouldn’t change my number for the rest of my life. Well yeah… I think I am gonna stick with this number for a very long time, no matter what if someday I would have to travel a lot and probably step my feet on any unexpected areas. I have been using this number since 2002.

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People may come and go, they may come back to look for me and they would find me easily because I do make myself to be reachable.

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They may find and try talk to me again. Yeah… they may try…

For those who used my “ruler of memory” for drawing a beautiful line with me, I will talk to them back.

For those who used my “ruler of memory” sloppily and made some cracks over the surface, I would remain silent peacefully.