My Thoughts After Years of Living Abroad.

It’s been a long time since i want to write down something about my experience living abroad. But just like other posts that have been left unattended in draft folder for ages – reminding me on how i was once so fired up about writing, but as time goes by, all pieces of mind that are engraved here – from wide range of personal topics have begun to pile up there collecting dust without knowing when they finally on a path to completion.

If you’re into writing, you’ve probably known this situation where you experience a creative slowdown to produce any new work. Personally, when it strikes, it creates an uneasy situation – even more uncomfortable than running out of tissue roll at time you need it the most.

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Speaking about running out of toilet paper. About three weeks ago i was in World Square Sydney – A department store in the heart of Sydney CBD (Central Business District), to collect a package from the post office after work. Afterwards, I went to its public toilet only to realize that they were out of the paper after finishing up my thing. Unlike in most Asian countries where they’ve got the bum gun installed next to the loo, here in Australia, the usage of a variety of softness, patterns and textures of toilet paper is the only thing you need to rely on cleaning up your back cleavage after doing your filthy business – if the paper is done, then you are dead, the simple thing you can do is looking for an available rool of tissue in the next toilet chamber with your doody ass and get the job done there.

Having to face this situation makes me so thankful to be raised in a culture that taught me the basic principle of using right hand to eat, and left hand to..

Well, you get the idea. I picked up my water bottle from my backpack, opened its lit, let the water ran down the crack and used my left hand to do the gooey job for me.

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About three weeks ago, i decided to move into a new suburb called Redfern – an inner-city suburb of Sydney located 3 kilometres south of the Sydney CBD. The room at the new apartment is more spacious with build in wardrobe to store all my stuffs. The neighborhood is also surrounded by cafes, restaurants, convenient stores, and parks – facilities that were unfortunately absence from my previous house in Sydenham where i lived with other 23 tenants in a so-called boarding house. Here, i only have a housemate who works from Monday to Friday, so every time he’s out to work, i can take over the whole apartment and feel a total freedom for myself.

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While writing this blog. I’m sitting in the living room at my new apartment, drinking deeply from bottle of beer on my hand, with my favorite playlist (John Mayer – Comfortable) playing in background – the only song that i have been listening for over years while occasionally opening up phone’s lock screen just to seek for distraction.

Last night before i slept, rainstorm poured down for the first time since i moved in, creating a relaxing nature calming sound that kept my sleep tight throughout the night. As like most adults, i have been struggling with insomnia and the rainstorm helped providing a soothing ambience in my room for sleep and relax which i desperately need lately.

Years ago, i remembered reading an article saying that anxiety, stress, and depression to be the most common causes of insomnia. I think right now i need to second everything the article said.

My anxiety has started to arise from a year ago. The time when i kept asking myself the same question over and over.

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“What the hell i am doing here for?”.

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Deciding to move to a country whose doesn’t possess any sentimental attachment directly to me isn’t so easy – not getting any easier even when I’ve lived here for years already. Not only because of all practical problems that i may have to encounter in daily basis, but also with the intensity of psychological situation that may arise when you aren’t rooted in your own origin territory. Loneliness, conflicts in a relationship, language barriers, fear of the futures, and so on.

This situation has recently built up into the feeling of being isolated and alienated. I thought at first that moving here would be a good step.. only to realize, later on..

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“What the hell i am here for?”.

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“The Grass Is Greener on the Other Side”. The idiom stated that something you do, you may see the other people always seem to be in a better situation, although they may not be. Many Indonesians whom i know tend to generalize that living overseas is a lot easier and more comfortable are probably those narrow-minded hardliners throwing their opinion with their eyes closed, frozenning in their own stereotypes by repeating what they might think is true to others without needing to bother to experience it by themselves.

One of many disadvantages i discover of living abroad is my incapability on monitoring the gossip about me around my friend cycles in Indonesia without being able to have a full grasp and counterattack immediately over the gossips circulating in the market. When i heard the rumor last time i was in Jakarta, actually i wasn’t even so surprised anymore as it’s always been the same person who’s doing it for so many times already. I just feel so pity for her because she started showing a low self-esteem to resolve a conflict ever since i rejected her love some years ago. For this reason, there is absolutely nothing i can do anymore, i just let her tongue cuts her throat fiercely.

One thing i can say to her – if she ever reads this post anyway, is that i’m leading a lot happier life here than in my homeland, even though the fact that the struggles i’ve been through here are not worth mentioning.

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“Then, why the hell i am here for?”

“Why you are staying even though you are struggling?”

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In some aspects in my opinion. I am more suited to Australian culture because of its assurance in giving me the freedom to express myself respectfully in public. My social liberalism views are more suitable, whereas the separation of politics and the fundamental aspect of religion here is not as intensively integrated as in Indonesia. Which means that i can easily be myself. without needing to get bother having someone to interfere with my ‘irreligion’ and ‘sexual identity’ anymore.

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To sum up. My view here is probably seen as irrelevant to you as you have different priorities and values that you hold in life. Maybe you want to live close to you families, maybe you feel more comfortable living in a tradition that close to your root, maybe you like living in religious environment, or maybe you prefer to do business in Indonesia because there’re more opportunities. Whatever the reasons are, living in Indonesia does not guarantee your prosperity is lower than those who live abroad.

In the end, living away from your homeland is sort of hard work. Ranging from limited finansial assistance from family to needing to understand the new regulated system and norms in new place. Anyone who have lived abroad or currently living overseas would be hundred percent agree that residing in foreign land is not always pleasant, just feel different.

And for me..

Let me feel being liberated for once in my life, please.

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By AP