BEING FORTY: gegar part

Foto yang menjadi latar belakang blog (pada saat ini), diambil di suatu malam di hari-hari pertama saya bergabung bersama Romp. Tak lain daripada sebuah advertising agency, industri dimana saya selama puluhan tahun ini berkutat untuk menghidupi keluarga (semoga berkah), membangun pertemanan (semoga pertemanan baik) dan berkarya (semoga, dan ini yang paling saya takutkan, dapat berguna).

Sebuah headphone full-ear, lampu yang bercahaya dan 1 pot tumbuhan dari Ikea ternyata cukup menggambarkan suasana hati, at least saat posting ini ditulis ya. Suasana hati dan kepala yang sedang gegar dengan bakti dan guna saya terhadap kehidupan.

Asumsi saya, ini semua karena bidang pekerjaan saya yang sifatnya sagatlah artificial dan materialistik. lalu, sempat diri ini mempertanyakan, apakah bidang ini masih relevan dengan saya dan ke depannya nanti.

Di sebuah pagi yang indah, saat saya dalam perjalanan menuju kantor, tentunya dengan semangat yang hilang selama beberapa hari ini, dan juga dengan sikap mengabaikan hampir semua email update tentang pekerjaan dan deck-deck presentasi yang harus saya cek, tiba-tiba ada notifikasi email masuk. Oh, dari siapa ya? Wah, ternyata dari Pak Bos. Sosok yang walau juga lebih tua dari saya, masih tetap memiliki sihir di industri ini.

Email itu berjudul Food for Thoughts. Nah, ini dia! Kapan ya terakhir kali kepala ini dikasih makan?
Ternyata isinya adalah sebuah artikel yang diambil dari sebuah website berbayar (Creative Review) yang selalu ada di angan-angan saya untuk subscribe - tapi nggak pernah kejadian (eh, kaya pernah denger di tempat lain juga ya hahaha). Begini isi artikelnya:

What to do if your job makes you unhappy
By Rachael Steven 07/10/2019

We all have bad days at work – but what should you do if your job is making you miserable? We asked careers coach Kat Koh for advice on dealing with short- and long-term unhappiness
Even the most exciting and fun creative jobs have their downsides, whether it’s punishing deadlines, tricky clients or having to work to meagre budgets. No matter how much you love what you do, you can guarantee that at some point, there will be days when work puts you in a bad mood.
But unhappiness at work could also be a sign that you’ve fallen out of love with your job. All too often, creatives spend years in roles that don’t make them happy, either because they’re scared to leave, or because it can be painful to admit that the job you thought you wanted – the one you studied, interned and slogged to get – isn’t as enjoyable as you’d hoped.

It’s a situation that Kat Koh, a careers coach for creative people, knows all too well. Koh started out as an art curator, working at MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum in New York, San Francisco’s San José Museum and the Venice Architecture Biennale. But after years of studying art history, and gaining experience at leading museums, she found that curation wasn’t quite what she imagined.
“What I realised through being a junior curator at these places was that my favourite part of the job was sitting down with artists or designers or filmmakers, whoever we were working with to put on an exhibition, and helping them work through conceptual ideas, and [decide] what would be their contribution to this – but I only got to do that around 10% of the time,” she explains.” The other 90% of the time, I was doing a bunch of other stuff that I really didn’t care for and so, after years and years of this, I realised I had to leave.”

We all get overwhelmed or bored or burnt out from time to time, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that your career is not going well or there’s something that isn’t working
“I really sat on this decision and I wouldn’t recommend it. I knew I wasn’t happy, but I felt so bought in, because I’d done a PhD programme, and I was in all this student debt … but [eventually], I thought, there must be something I can do where I can do this more than 10% of the time,” she adds. “I didn’t know what that job was, but I found my own careers coach to help me in this process … and I realised through getting coached that if I could support creatives in this way, then I’d be spending 90% of the time doing what I could do only 10% of the time as a curator.”
Koh left the art world, retrained as a careers coach and has since worked with over 1,000 people, from product designers to filmmakers and entrepreneurs. Her clients range from junior designers fresh out of college to creative directors in their 40s, and most come to Koh because they’re feeling unsatisfied at work and want to make a change.

As Koh points out, it’s perfectly normal to feel unhappy at work, but there’s a difference between short- and long-term unhappiness. Feeling frustrated isn’t necessarily a signal that it’s time to quit your job – it could just be that you’re just overwhelmed and need to take some time out.
“We all get overwhelmed or bored or burnt out from time to time, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that your career is not going well or there’s something that isn’t working,” says Koh. “We’re so hyper-connected all the time and as someone who lives in San Francisco, I’m acutely aware of this. The phones we have, the computers we have, the software we use, there are brilliant people who are paid lots of money to think of brilliant ways to make you stay on them … and that’s very fatiguing, so it might just be that perhaps you need a break from it all. A lot of creatives work mostly on the computer, so the number one thing I’d suggest is going on a bit of a detox, even for a day.” For those who are feeling particularly overwhelmed, she advises spending a weekend catching up with loved ones and doing something you enjoy – whether it’s painting, making something tangible or going for a run. It might sound like common sense, but as Tanya Livesey recently explored in CR, rest is important for wellbeing and creativity.

If that doesn’t help, Koh recommends an exercise that, ironically, is borrowed from the tech world. “There’s something that is used quite often in tech called a retrospective. Often, it’s done after any major project is finished, and there are four columns: what went well, what can be improved, what do we want to do differently next time, and what still puzzles us? I’d recommend doing a present-day retrospective on your job – what are you really happy about, what is not going so well that could use some improvement, and in terms of the next time column, it could be rephrased to say, how do I want to move things forward?… What still puzzles you is a great one that I always recommend people spend some time with – what is still confusing or unclear to you about your current job or the work that you’re doing?”

The vast majority of folks that are very unhappy that I speak to are unhappy because they’ve been asking themselves, what should I do next? What is wrong?
If your unhappiness persists, then Koh believes it’s time to assess whether your job is really for you – or whether it might be time to make a change. But this realisation can often bring with it fresh anxiety over what to do next.
This is perfectly normal  – after all, human brains are hard-wired to fear uncertainty, and Koh says she is yet to meet someone who isn’t anxious at the prospect of changing jobs or careers, but it can leave people feeling stuck and unsure about what their next step should be.
This can be particularly stressful for creatives who pride themselves on creative problem-solving. “Creatives can be really hard on themselves about this – people will say but I’m a creative and I can’t think my way out of this, I feel so stuck, but there’s nothing wrong with them, and nothing bad happening to you – it’s just your brain doing its job because change is afoot,” says Koh. However, Koh believes that many people also feel anxious because they’re asking themselves all the wrong questions.

“The vast majority of folks that are very unhappy that I speak to [are unhappy] because they’ve been asking themselves, what should I do next? What is wrong? Questions that start with what? What should I do next is a great example, because as we know, you can just hop on the internet and there are so many possibilities, and everyone has an opinion – your parents have an opinion, your partner has an opinion, everyone has something to say – so this question causes a lot of swirl, and it can keep people in a holding pattern for a decade if you let it. I’m going to be bold and say this is the wrong question you should be asking when you’re unhappy,” she explains.
Instead, Koh believes it’s important to focus on the whys: “Starting with the question why is much more helpful, because why is connected to what’s meaningful and important to you. It could be why do you love this kind of work? Or why do you love design? Why do you love this company? Why do you hate this company?

“We’re bombarded with information all the team, so if you’re not clear on what’s important to you in your next job, whether it’s flexible working, or collaboration … it can be easy to get distracted thinking, maybe this is [the answer], or maybe that’s it – but when you clarify what’s meaningful to you, it gives you ground to stand on. It’s a great question to come back to when you feel like you keep coming back to the same question.”
If someone works at a really cool design house, often people will be really excited for them. Internally, they might be having a very different experience
Koh says this method has helped many of her clients figure out their next step – in some cases leading to promotion and in others, to a whole new career path. “One of my clients, when we first started working together, was the only designer in a very big company in New York. He was constantly getting pulled into meetings to represent design, and he didn’t have any creative time – so one of the things we clarified was that he wanted to be part of a collaborative, creative team of designers, and he also wanted to be a design leader. He’s now a head of design at the company, and he has five direct reports.”

Another of Koh’s clients left her job as an in-house creative director to set up her own graphic design practice, but soon became frustrated with the fact that she was spending most of her time on computers. After taking up painting, she discovered the world of surface design, and now splits her time between screen-based and physical work.
In the creative industries in particular, people can often be reluctant to admit they’re unhappy at work – especially if their job is one that might, on the surface, seem like a dream role.  “If someone works at a really cool design house, often people will be really excited for them and say that’s so cool that you work there. Internally, they might be having a very different experience, but there is this feeling of who can I really talk to about this, because everyone keeps saying you have such a great job, why would you be unhappy?”

As someone who has made a career out of helping creatives who are feeling stuck, frustrated or unsatisfied, Koh is keen to point out that it’s not uncommon – especially if you’ve reached a point where it’s time to make a change, either because you feel you’ve outgrown your job, or because you’ve decided it isn’t for you.
The most important thing if you’ve found yourself in this position, says Koh, is to identify the cause of your unhappiness through identifying what makes you happy – and what doesn’t – before you start trying to work out how to get yourself out of it.
“Just like certain recipes must be followed in a certain order and the meal is disastrous if you don’t, I really believe that the order in which you ask these questions is really important, because when you get clear, the part of your brain that is excellent at coming up with ideas and problem solving, that can kick into gear in an amazing focused way, rather than like a firecracker … once you have that clarity, then you can get up and do other things in your life and not worry so much because you’ve laid out a plan and a path.”

Hmmm, gak hepi boleh. 

Tapi jangan kelamaan. 

Kayanya trik ini nggak cuma relate di sikap bekerja ya, tapi juga di segala aspek kehidupan. Selama hal ini nggak bikin menderita banget, mungkin saatnya punya distraksi baru. Bukan berarti nggak hepi juga. At least buat aku. Karena somehow, industri ini memberikan kejujuran walau juga outputnya (lebih banyak) tentang situasi idealnya dan bukan gambaran realistis. Kenapa jujur? Karena di industri ini aku mampu mentertawai diri sendiri (again, walau lebih banyak mentertawai orang lain ya). Ditambah lagi, nobody dies. 

Lalu, apakah hal ini membuatku berhenti dari gegarku? 
Tunggu di cerita gegar part 2, ya. 
Insya Allah. 

BEING FORTY: dad

as I wrote here,
https://wulliewullie.blogspot.com/2019/05/life-begins-at-forty.html

and I wrote before,
https://wulliewullie.blogspot.com/2019/03/ma-n-pa.html

Still I cannot believe that he's already gone.

I can still hear his voice.
I can still feel his presence.
Specially at night, after Isya, he often stay for coffee and tv.
I can still hear the phone rings when I come back late from the office, listen to his voice asking me when will I be home.

This is too hard for me.
It is like I'm loosing my spine and courageous facing life.

Never thought loosing him is going to be this painful and I got suffocated every time I reminisce him. Often times I scream inside calling out his name
"Bapaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak"
When I brush my teeth,
when I exhale,
when in shower,

Would you come in my dream?
I just want to ask you,

"Are you okay?"
"Has god been treating you nice?"
"I miss you"

BEING FORTY: A day with Mom

Walau rumah sebelahan; jarang-jarang aku menghabiskan waktu di rumah Mamah. Tapi hari itu, kita masak dan belanja bareng. Judulnya sih pengen masak ayam panggang, sekalian juga belajar dan mencuri resep ayam bakar andalan si Mamah.

Kangen juga rasanya. Dulu, tiap bulan Ramadhan, biasanya kita selalu duduk bareng untuk bikin kue. Kebiasaan ini terhenti baru-baru ini aja. Saat aku udah nemu vendor kue sehat dan enak, dan Mamah juga udah terlalu tua dan cepat merasa capek. Tinggal tradisi bikin cheese stick yang masih dipertahankan. Tapi biasanya itu lapaknya Mamah dan cucu-cucunya.

Hari itu, aku malah skip sana-sini selama proses masaknya. Karena, Mamah minta bantuin obatin anak kucing yang lagi flu dan sakit mata. Tapi karena itu juga waktu memasak jadi lebih lama dan di sela-sela itu, kita jadi cerita banyak. Bahkan cerita hal yang sudah setahun ini kupendam, akhirnya tumpah ruah juga. Mamah juga cerita hal-hal kecil antara dia dan si aki. Buat Mamah, hal-hal yang dia ceritain itu mengesalkan. Tapi buatku, cerita-cerita itu lucu sekali. Dan somehow, ... manis banget untuk dikenang.

Growing old together is not easy. 
But yet we should be grateful if we have someone to share our old days with. 

Kalau denger dari cerita-cerita Mamah soal si Bapak, kayanya dua-duanya tuh memang nggak merasa sudah tua. Ya iya sih, kita semua juga nggak ada yang sadar bahwa sudah tua. Rasanya masih muda dan masih sempurna paripurna. Padahal, pendengaran misalnya, mulai menurun. Saat si A teriak-teriak, hal itu tak lain adalah karena dia nggak bisa mendengar suaranya sendiri. Trus si B tersinggung, kenapa si A teriak-teriak dan nggak merasa salah. Karena si B udah sakit hati, gak kedengeran lagi tuh si A ngomong apa. Jadilah si A marah beneran, karena udah teriak-teriak kok si B bodoh banget sampai nggak paham maksudnya.

Hahaha ... blunder.

Misalnya lagi, cerita soal bau kaki. Si A complain karena si B bau kaki. Si B boro-boro sadar kakinya bau, jadi marah karena dituding jadi kaki bau. Padahal, semata-mata bau tidak sedap itu datang dari sela kaki dan kuku, yang mana karena sudah tua merunduk untuk mengeringkan kaki saja tidak bisa. Sendi-sendi rasanya kaku dan pernah suatu waktu spontan nunduk ambil mainan si cucu, eh malah syaraf punggung terjepit. Habis marah-marah soal bau kaki, lalu aku lihat mereka saling gosok-gosokan balsem karena hari sudah sore dan badan mulai ngilu.

Cerita Mamah masih belum berakhir. Kali ini soal rasa bosan. Bosan dengan ngilu-ngilu yang dirasakan, bosan minum obat, bosan dengan dia lagi dia lagi yang tampak di depan muka, bosan dengan hidup yang tidak lagi menawarkan hingar bingar, ... hidup di usia akhir tujuh puluhan dengan kondisi kesehatan dan keuangan yang biasa-biasa aja, ternyata cukup penuh tantangan. Giliran lagi sehat, dompetnya nggak sehat. Saat dompet sehat, badan nggak kuat.

Hahaha ... sabar. Tuhan akan mengabulkan, sayangnya seringkali tidak di waktu yang kita mau. 

 Mamah terlihat senang sekali saat saya masak bersama di dapurnya hari itu. Setelahnnya,  kita belanja bareng, tentu dengan ATM yang sudah diisiin anak-anaknya. Makin hepi deh dia.

Growing old is not easy, but there's always something we can smile at. 

Sehat selalu dan penuh berkah di usia senjamu ya aki, nini,
semoga aku senantiasa punya waktu dan rejeki untuk membahagiakanmu.

Life begins at forty

I have been thinking of a post about me hitting forty. I have been thinking it before birthday, during birthday, and now it has been 17 days after my fortieth birthday and I just have the mojo to write at this moment.

For my fortieth birthday,  I was planning of a solo getaway, of going umrah, of spending some nights with my girls, all of them is to celebrate the so called 'newly life'. But none of them ever happened. Yet.

Turned out, on the D day, I chose just to stay home and celebrated it with my family, in a simple restaurant. My celebration mood decreasing little by little as I hit April and Daddy got sick. Then I have to prepare my son for a national exam. Along with hubby's no sugar no carbs movement, I had to squeezed my brain to make a flourless sugarless birthday cake for him. All of these actually drenched my mood of birthday celebration. But I had no regrets at all. In contrary, I felt content.

Hubby tried to impress me by surprised cake and a gift I have been craving: mirrorless camera hahaha! I also got so many birthday wishes, my boss invited me and my team to his house and he made a homemade safron ice cream. He also gave me a little gift, a handmade leather brooch from middle east. I was beyond happy.

Today, when I was preparing myself to write this post, I stumbled upon a post I did three years ago: https://wulliewullie.blogspot.com/2015/08/fridate-with-girls.html and it got me thinking.

That I have been living a good life and a good path. Who would have thought that I could finally bought a branded handbag for mom within two years after I uploaded the post? Who would have thought that I would be able to take care and to be the bread winner for both my mom and dad on their old days? Who would have thought that I could take them to fancy dinners? That glorious life people perceived by hitting forties; I actually have achieved them before I was forty.

But now that I am being forty, I have another interpretation about which life of mine that's just begun.
It is the life of being more wise, speaking in a soft manner to my parents.
It is the life of realizing my authority upon their good life.
It is the moment when I saw my father cried, just like me in my twenties being broken-hearted.
It is the life of understanding my parents' disability because they got so much older.
It is the life of me accepting aching bones during too cold aircon.
It is the new life I will be facing from now on, and still I am very grateful.

Thank you dear Allah.
Thank you for loving me so much.

Eerie early

another April post,
not a nice one.
.
there was once you worried about my weight
and there was once i worried about my weight
and i still do
.
and look at me, dad
the love i have been searching now turns to handles on my hip
the sacs that has decided to be friend with gravity
the bags i have been craving and now are hanging right under my eyes
.
just at the time i have them all
the weight you want me to bear,
the love you want me to find,
the joyous fatty laugh that won't leave,
but strangely they make me worry about you
simply because you are just less heavy than i do
.
and here comes the time i am worry about you
i have become you

get well soon, pap.

Cinta itu, terkadang, adanya di perut

hulo!

gilaaaaa, sudah lama sekali nggak blogging. Much of people (I mean my friends) start podcasting and I am not so confident to do it, might as well let's go back to blog aja deh yaaaa. Udah lama juga nggak sharing, baru ada 2 post tahun ini. Oh my! Maaf ya teman-teman (ih, kaya banyak yang baca aja sih yaaa) hahaha....

so,
mau sharing apa kali ini?

hmmm,
sebenernya udah lama sih pengen cerita tentang aktivitas baru yang kira-kira berawal di bulan puasa tahun ini. Jadi memang baru beberapa bulan aja sih. Sampai akhirnya film Aruna dan Lidahnya released. Trus saya kecewa gitu sama filmnya. mungkin over expectation. secara ya, fans berat NS hehehe. sayang sih, ... sayang banget. Tapi bukan filmnya yang mau dibahas. Yang mau dibagi adalah cerita saya tentang betapa makanan yang dihasilkan oleh dapur di rumah; bisa menumbuhkan asa atau harapan baru dalam sebuah hubungan.

rumah ini berdiri tahun 2006, setahun sebelum titan lahir. tapi baru tahun ini, si ibu dan dapurnya bisa memproduksi makanan rumahan sendiri secara rutin, setiap hari. lebih tepatnya, mau memproduksi makanan rumahan sendiri. kalau cuma 'bisa' sih, dari dulu juga bisa. tapi kalau 'mau' sepertinya lebih ada muatan niat dan effort. niat dan effort itu, tentunya akan lebih besar kalau ada motif.

as we all know ya, gak ada yang namanya pernikahan yang udah lebih dari 10 tahun akan tetap membara seperti di awalnya. pasti cuma ada di instagram. kalau sekolah tiap tahun ada naik kelasnya, harusnya pernikahan juga ada dong ya. masa gitu-gitu aja. dalam kasus saya, masa masih juga nggak masakin suami dan anak-anak? sementara, di masa kecil saya (bahkan hingga saat ini), hidup saya dimanjain sama masakan ibu nini yang luar biasa tak tergantikan lezatnya. lalu kapan giliran suami dan anak-anak saya? selain weekend tentunya.

niatan ini juga didorong oleh obrolan ringan di saat sahur bersama seorang klien saya. ih, males banget ya hang-out sahuran? hahaha, tenang, ini semua karena shooting! klien saya itu perempuann dan belum menikah, tapi dia bercerita bagaimana seorang temannya di kantor bisa menjadi ibu bekerja dengan mudah. ia cerita bagaimana temannya ini berlangganan delivery sayuran ke kantor, setiap hari. trik si ibu sih sebenarnya biasa aja ya. tapi cara klien saya itu bercerita, saya jadi terinspirasi sekaligus kesentil.

ya iya juga sih. what's stopping me?

Lalu pelan-pelan, saya mulai berteman sama tukang sayur yang lewat depan rumah setiap hari. Awalnya masa kapa aja yang ada di gerobaknya. Lama-lama mulai minta nomor telfon, trus pesan bahan mentah yang saya mau dan dia antarkan keesokan harinya.

Lalu saya mulai tanya-tanya teman, tukeran inspirasi menu mingguan. Tukeran resep, tips and trick gimana supaya masak pagi lebih efektif. Gimana kalau shooting pagi, makanan apa yang cocok untuk dimasak malam sebelumnya dan masih tetap enak keesokan harinya.

Awalnya saya masak sepulang kantor. Untuk makan malam, dan masak batch 2 untuk keesokan harinya. Masakan batch 2 ini sih biasanya bikin base-nya aja. Seperti masak kaldu sup, jadi besok anak-anak tinggal cemplungin sayur-sayurnya aja yang sudah saya siapin. Atau, masak ungkep ayam / daging atau bikin tempe bacem. Atau juga bumbuin ayam tepung, jadi anak-anak bisa minta tolong mbak untuk gorengin kalau sudah mau makan.

Beberapa bulan lancer tuh dengan ritme seperti itu. Jadi saya bobo agak malam, dan bangun pagi santai-santai. Toh berangkat ke kantor juga baru jam 9 pagi.

Tapi tiba-tiba, suami sibuk cari-cari lunch box di tokopedia. Wah, saya deg-degan. Ternyata bener aja, dia berniat untuk membawa makan siang sendiri hahaha… ya kalo siapin makan siang kan berarti ai harus bangun pagi juga anyway, kaaaaaaan hahaha!

But then I take it as … he loves my cooking. Suami juga bukan tipe yang pergi makan siang keluar kantor. Lebih suka makan di tempat kerja, secepatnya, seperlunya, sambil lanjut kerja.

Jadi, akhirnya, ritme hidup saya mulai seperti ibu-ibu lainnya. Seperti juga sahabat-sahabat saya yang lain. Bangun lebih pagi untuk siapin makan pagi dan sekaligus masak untuk keseluruhan hari itu.

Trus, ada perubahan yang terjadi gak setelah saya masak sendiri buat suami dan anak-anak?

Much as cliché as an ad commercial, tapi bener sih. Kayanya kedatangan saya pulang ke rumah lebih ditunggu-tunggu. Anak-anak lebih respect sama setiap makanan yang saya buat. Saya jadi lebih dekat lagi sama suami. Group persahabatan lebih rame dengan hal-hal essential dan lebih supportif, encouraging untuk bisa bikin masakan yang lebih variative lagi. Dan luna, jadi senang masak ngeliatin ibunya. Udah bisa iris bawang merah tipis tanpa buraian air mata. Yang lebih senang lagi sih, karena saya bisa jadi contoh yang dia liat dan dia kerjain sendiri.

Jadi bener ya. Terkadang, cinta itu adanya di perut.

This is: marriage after kids



Maybe it feels like there is less time now
For date nights
Romance
... or each other

When there is little one to feed, love and care for
Part of you might miss before
But there is strength in these changes
and vulnerability to find each other
And if you know where is to look
there romance is still there

It's in the quiet early morning hours
before the kids wake
It's in the care you take
It's in the way your partner looks at your child
and the way you see them parent
and try to be better each day

2017: what dad says about being a father

Banyak anak, banyak rejeki kata orang-orang. Ya rejeki anak.
Kalau ada seorang bapak yang tidak menafkahi anaknya, maka celakalah ia. Karena sebagian dari harta yang ia makan atau simpan, adalah harta anaknya.

Bersyukur. Yang banyak.

Jadi orang jangan terlalu pilih-pilih. Makan yang ada. Kerjakan yang ada. Enggak usah baru mau kerja kalau begini dan begitu. Inshaa Allah, kalau dimulai kerjaan yang enggak enak berujung dengan kerjaan yang lebih enak. Daripada menunggu dapat kerjaan enak.

Bekerjalah. Anak-anak harus melihat bagaimana orang tuanya bekerja.

2017: what dad says about husband & wifey

Chapter 1:
Enggak ada suami istri itu saling tanya "Lantas, mau kamu gimana?" dan mensyaratkan satu dengan lain untuk menjadi orang yang dikehendaki pasangannya. Saya rasa tidak begitu cara berumah tangga. Karena nanti, kalau sewaktu-waktu orang itu kembali kepada karakter dirinya, ya bisa ribut lagi dengan alasan "Kan dulu sudah ada perjanjian mau begini. Atau begitu. Tapi enggak kejadian."

Menurut saya, dengan saling sayang, semua ketidaksempurnaan akan tertutup. Nah, bagaimana memelihara sayang itu?
Dengan menjaga omongan. Jangan berkata yang kasar kepada istri atau suami.
Saling menghormati. Hargai setiap jerih upaya masing-masing dan hargai saat mau waktu sendiri. Karena di kantor mungkin sedang capek, mungkin sedang ada masalah, kadang tidak semua bisa dibicarakan saat itu juga kepada pasangan.
Ke tiga, ya disyukuri. Bersyukur dengan apa yang ada. Jangan cari yang enggak ada.

Chapter 2:
"Tidak semua perkataan perempuan / istri itu harus dimengerti. Cukup didengarkan saja. Karena namanya perempuan, kadang lompatan konteks pembicaraan itu terlalu cepat dan jauh; padahal kita (lelaki) masih mikir dengan apa yang baru saja dia katakan. Nah, kalau sudah lompat-lompat gitu ya didengarkan saja. Enggak perlu dimengerti isinya. Yang perlu dimengerti adalah, bahwa dia lagi butuh didengarkan."

2017: Tentang Tuhan

Nooooo! 
Get out, get out!
I want to get out!
Bunda, wake up! Do not sleep there, there's a snake!

Kata Luna, di suatu pagi buta, terbangun dari mimpinya.

There was a snake. 
It is small. It is bleeding. 

It is okay. Ada bunda dan bubu, jangan takut lagi. Seprainya sudah diangkat, sudah diganti enggak ada lagi ular dan darah. Lagian, itu mimpi bukan betul-betul kejadian.

Ada Bunda ya. 
Emang Bunda enggak takut ular?

And I was like hit by thunder.
Of course, I am sooooo afraid with snakes.
And Luna knows that.

Hmmm, aku takut juga sih sama ular. 
Nanti kalau ada lagi, kita pukul aja. Oke?

Luna thinks for a while.

Luna mau berdoa aja. 

I might have died being hit by thunder twice.
But her words are so ... thundering and englightening.
And I think it was the moment she learns about the Almighty.
The concept of God when she has no trust on power within and around her.

... and I learnt a lesson.

2017 tentang fungsi dan hati

Selama sekian tahun, weekend seringkali disisipi dengan reminder-reminder untuk menjadi normal dengan mandi. Pagi atau sore, atau salah satu diantaranya. Karena sewajarnya mandi itu dua kali sehari. 

"Sudah mandi belum?"

"Guys, mandi."

"Kok belum mandi?"

"Ya ampuuuuuuun pada belum mandiiiiii... mandi sana!"

Hingga, hari itu tiba. Hari yang wajar. Dimana setiap weekend tiba, tidak lagi menjadi weekend yang tidak normal karena dia dan mereka selalu mandi dan wangi tanpa disuruh. 

Lalu?

Iya, lalu apa kalau sudah mandi? 

Tidak lantas setelah mandi kemudian dihujani pujian-pujian surgawi, ternyata.

Tidak semerta-merta setelah mandi akan dipeluk dan dicium juga, ternyata.

Sudah mandi, ya sudah. Hening. 

Lalu, yang kemarin ribut-ribut suruh mandi itu untuk apa? 

Saat itu, saat dimana semua berjalan normal, weekend jadi enggak normal lagi. Karena enggak ada lagi suruh-suruhan mandi, suruh-suruhan makan, dan jadinya diem-diem aja. Dan seseorang baru saja terhenyak, bahwa selama ini sehari-hari komunikasi mereka hanyalah sebatas fungsi. 

Di tahun 2017 ini, dikasih kesempatan untuk belajar (lagi) memilih mana hal penting yang lebih penting dari semua hal. Belajar untuk bertanya ke diri sendiri soal 'then what if they do what I say?' sebelum meminta suami dan anak-anak melakukan sesuatu. 

Let's cut the crap from the question of Which Mom Are You?

A few years back, social media was being fussy about working mom versus stay at home home. What a nonsense brag! Since I went through both and also had a chance of being a working-from-home mom, it is even more ridiculous for me. Only stupid have a time discussing it and to elaborate on their social media status. Whoever we are, what kind of mom we are, what matters most is how we can make our life productive and progressing. Every single day.

Different mom has different ways of being productive. Some goes to work. Some clean up and cook for the family. Some works at home by selling stuffs online or being a freelancer. Productive means to produce something. Be it money, the foods, you name them all. But the question is, is productive enough? How about having a progressing life? Not as the wife of Mr. Blabla or as the mom of kid Zubidudamdam. But us, as a person. Me, as Wury; a 38 years old woman and how far I have made progress in  my life.

BUT. Let alone of being progressive, ... are we even productive?

This question stroke me a few weeks ago, when my preschooler rejected to school and said that she wants to be at home. "Like Bunda (mom) who is having endless holiday. I am not going to school"
I was sooo broken hearted. But then I learnt that her words should be a motor for me to keep moving. Ever since, I cook more. I bake more. I craft more and ... I learn more.

Being productive and progressing doesn't mean we need to do it all at the same time. We can start by being productive, and when we are tired, we can try to be more progressive by sharpening our soft skills. We can learn new things, meet new people for broader perspective or meet old friends for venting out. Or, we can register an online course.

There are so many online courses that is held by reputable universities in the whole wide world. I have tried some courses in Coursera and now I am taking one in EDX. Most courses are 10 weeks long and we can pursue the achievement certification or we can convert it to 1 semester credit (depends on the university). To me, EDX is more interesting because it is more interactive and the videos are not only from the scholars but also from the point of view of people, real managers and experts.  I am sure there are lots of more courses or activities we can choose for self-feed and you can share them to me.

From time to time; we, women, need to be able to empower ourself and I wish us good luck.

Tentang kamu di suatu pagi

Saat itu. Aku, aki dan dirimu; La Luna. 

Naik motor di pagi hari, mengantarmu bersekolah untuk belajar dan berlari-lari. 

Kamu di paling depan dan aku di paling belakang. 

Kamu pegang erat batang spion motor dan menikmati pemandangan. 

Melihat ke kiri, ke kanan, mengintip spion ke belakang. 

Aku peluk kamu erat. Jemariku merapat erat.

Terasa degupmu yang berdetak-detak. Karena ingin bertemu teman-teman? Atau karena kami bertiga mengantarmu ke sekolah dengan sepenuh hati, sepenuh doa? 

Kamu lepaskan satu tanganmu dari batang spion. 

Dan kamu genggam tanganku, menyatu dengan degup jantungmu. 

Saat itu aku bertanya-tanya, kenapa kamu melakukan itu? 

Tapi kemudian aku menghentikan semua tanya dan hanya merasa. 

Bahwa kamu senang, ada aku. 

#ndaluna

Life. Just like what I wanted.

Sounds so snobbish ya, saying life is just like what I wanted. But then I realized, semua itu karena emang aku enggak pengen apa-apa. Sekarang juga (ternyata) masih begitu. Dulu emang I treat my life like a blue print. Things to do piling up my list and my aims were to accomplish them. Alhamdulillah, semua tercapai. Tapi kemudian seperti ada titik tolak dalam hidup yang bikin  berhenti ingin terlalu banyak dari hidup. Entah karena merasa udah cukup banyak pencapaian pribadi baik yang bagus atau yang buruk, entah karena pernah kecewa berat sama yang namanya manusia atau karena alasan klise yang digadang-gadang semua manusia: anak.

Sekarang ini, lebih banyak menyambut apa yang datang ke dalam hidup. Termasuk, kembali ke agency lagi. Having thought that I am not some kind of 'Man in a mission' kind of person. I am just an 'I will do my best' of what comes in front of me kind of person.

Gini ceritanya.

Tiga belas bulan yang lalu, saya memutuskan untuk kembali bekerja setelah 2,5 tahun jadi freelance (tapi lebih banyak free-nya sih hahaha). Satu-satunya yang bikin saya merasa harus bekerja ya cuma Apple. Sisanya, banyak project yang saya tolak-tolakin karena males aja sih intinya. Belaguk bangetlah pokoknya.

Setelah merasa udah nggak produktif lagi di rumah, otak berasa tumpul dan rasa percaya diri udah nyungsep, saat itulah saya terima tawaran untuk kembali ke advertising. Banyak yang nyinyir sih, menganggap industri itu gelap banget dan ngapain udah enak-enak di rumah kok ya balik ngantor. Alasannya cuma satu: bosen di rumah.

Enggak tahu hal baik apa yang telah saya lakukan dalam hidup, ternyata saya dianugerahi tim yang baiiiiik banget. Anaknya manis-manis, good attitude dan yang paling penting; penuh tanggung jawab. Saya ngerasa banyak belajar dari mereka. Mulai hal baru di luaran sana sampai cara pakai krim mata. Enggak sedikit juga kesedihan yang kita tanggung bareng-bareng, dan pernah juga air mata ini berderai karena enggak bisa menyelamatkan salah satu dari mereka untuk tetap bisa kerja bareng di Havas. Saat hari lagi down banget, semangkuk ramen dan tawa biasanya bisa melepas ke bete-an. Saya emang nggak pernah menempatkan diri sebagai bos yang harus bitchy dan memaksakan kehendak. Some said, saya terlalu baik sama anak-anak. Tapi dulu saya belajar, bahwa bos itu tugasnya bukan ngide tapi menajamkan ide yang ada. Karena dulu saya belajar, bahwa bos itu harus mau tangannya kotor; bukan cuma nyuruh-nyuruh doang. Karena dulu saya belajar, memimpin itu harus dengan empati.

Kemudian, saya risain. Tepat sehari sebelum ulang tahun saya yang ke tiga puluh delapan.
And for the past thirty days, nothing much I did but something new or redo the things I loved to do.

I celebrated my most romantic birthday, thanks to my son!

I started exercising pilates. Been attending 5 sessions so far. I also walk more.

I got the chance to join an empowering conference for women to boost my confidence as woman leader. I met so many empowering women out there from gen x, gen y and millennials. From the conference, I learnt that to be a successful woman leader, we need great support system as well: parents and spouse; those who shaped us and those who is standing at our back. And when we got stronger, we don't really need to show our strength at home *wink*

I met those whom I could not meet because those time consuming work hours: besties! 

Of course, spent some quality time with the kids. Picked them from school, went mall-ing, watch movies, tried the famous Pablo cheese tart and fulfill the long-awaited-craving of mille crepes.

I managed to finish all the overdue tasks from renewing my driving licence, get the social health card for my family and ... finish the business model for my start-up project. So o'yeay! 

Last but not the least, enjoying good coffee my husband made like ... every morning :) I know I would never get this privilege without his support and he has been showering me with sincerity and abundant love over me. Thank you, Bubu! Now within two days, I will have to start a new chapter in the new office. I was so nervous last week, but I have been a bit cooled down lately hahaha. Wish me luck!

The link is back

I used to blog for Malicca. His unstoppable questions, wonders, opinions and everything. But then I stopped after Luna was born, because I felt unfair to have a blog under a name of emaklicca (only). 

But then, after those two been growing up together in different phase of life, I feel the urge to blog once again. This time is about them two. Because having two satellites, it is not them both who revolves around me. Instead, I revolve around them and they are my teachers of life. My mirrors of what I have done in life. My karma. 

They haven't know about this blog yet. Someday, I will reveal this all.

Feel free to click my satellites from time to time