19/08/2016
A Letter to Myself
By: Anonym (Someone from batch 15)
This letter goes out to my younger self. The one who always look at herself in the mirror and never feel like she is enough. The one who had accepted the fact that she would never adhere to the beauty standard and turned her efforts to her brain instead. The one who always spent her late nights studying, devouring every letters of every books she could find. Scrambling and assembling every piece of knowledge she could discover. For she always measures her worth by numbers, and the numbers never neglects or turns the table against her.
Self,
When you fall in love, you would want to know whether you are really worth something. Whether you are good enough for his attention, whether you are good enough for his affection. Wondering whether you are good enough to make him stay up late to weave the words that make your lips curve, like the moon that grinned over the starry night sky. When you fall in love, the stars would curl into a question mark around the fort on your heart that started to crumble. Are you worthy of his attention? Are you even worthy of anything at all?
Self,
When you fall in love, you would enter an uncharted territory. A territory that cannot be found in books, or maps. A territory with no manuals. A strange dark place that you dare not turn your head to. For you know, when you follow the whispering allure of that dark place, you would always get hurt. Throughout the years, no one ever bothers to stay. One or two had tried to switch on the light, hoping to give the dark place a little light—but they failed. Those, who can actually locate where the switch is, refused to do so. So you retreated and you do what you do best: you put your nose further in a book, ignoring your heart that pounds every time you saw that person on the hallway. Little by little, you kept convincing yourself that he would like you more if you are smarter, that he would like you more if you won an award, that you would be more wanted if you are excellent.
But he did not even flinch when you won the best trophy for your academic performance. He did not strike up a conversation when the teacher talked about you in his class. He took someone else to a date, he sneered at you from across the hall, and he did not even want to talk to you when the whispers about your feelings reached his ears. We both know how you came into a realization that:
He would never like you no matter how ‘smart’ you are.
Nobody would ever like you no matter how ‘smart’ you are.
Your lame high school crushes made you convince yourself that you are not worth someone’s affection. That you better learn how to stand on your own two feet. Love is just an artificial concept only teenage girls would glamorize and carve on the bone outside their door. We both know how we retreat to the place we feel most comfortable with, books. But this time it is different because you keep on telling yourself that you are not a teenager anymore. That you have responsibilities to look after your siblings and make your parents proud. That you are too good to be one of those people. That this life would f**k you up eventually, and that no love would not stay eternally. You are convinced that only knowledge and skill would be with you until the end. So, again, you keep your guard up—arming every side of the book-fortress in your heart with skilled archers, ready to strike at a moment’s notice.But when Love came, the fortress around your heart woulds lowly crumble and the archers would be sent home. The numbers would all be gone and the logic with it.
This letter goes to my younger self because I know damn well that you would need a manual when you fall in love. Okay, here goes: when you fall in love, you would want to cry. A lot. Because for once, you measure your worth not by a concrete number but by someone’s judgement. You would measure your worth not by how smart your arguments are but by the look he sent you over his shoulder. You would lost control and became one of those people. And you would want to cry a lot because you would not like losing control over your life. You would not want to step on a wobbly step on the strange dark place, which surprisingly, would not be as strange and as dark anymore. But you would feel unworthy, you would feel that you are unworthy because you are not pretty enough, or smart enough, or kind enough. Your brain would turn into this greedy monster that always scream more, more, more. Further, you would feel like you don’t even have the right to call him yours. The word yours is really strange to your tongue because you simply never call someone that. You would feel like there is something or someone out there he is still trying to reach for. Something or someone that is not you. Maybe it is a recognition, a prize, a consolation, or even past lovers. And you would not want to accept that.
You would be introduced to your new inner demons they call jealousy. You would feel threatened by an imaginary woman, a person who glared at you from across the cafeteria table. Although you know well that he would not flinch on the sight of another woman but your ears are full of war cries every damn time you see him talking to her. So you would do what you do best: retreating to books, indulge yourself with spoken words poetry, hoping, that these strangers half a world away would give you an advice on how you should take control over yourself. Darling, you would fight for him, hard. You would think that you should give a lot to this person, after all, if you can devote so much time into your work—why can’t you do the same for him? When you fall in love, darling, you would unlearn how to love yourself. You deprived yourself of self-love with hope that he would give it to you. Hoping, that he would fill the gap in-between your fingers, and that he would make you feel worthy and wanted for once. But honey,
You have never been so wrong.
For he is always busy with himself,you and he would know that his time is too arrogant to even turn its head to you. That you would be put as the second priority, over and over and over again, and your stupid lovey-dovey self would be okay with it. For you are the girl who always forgive. But, be the girl who never forgets. Darling, do not let the world take you for granted. Do not let him be the measurements of your worth. You, are the worthiest girl I have ever seen. You are the girl who would stay up for three consecutive nights to read the latest installment of Harry Potter, the girl who would drop everything at once to see her favorite author even just for a bit, the girl who listens, who do not give judgement. The girl who fights—in her quiet ways—to get what she wants in life. You, are the girl with the wealth but without the pride. You, are the girl who is afraid of hurting someone’s feeling. You, are the girl who cried behind closed doors. The girl who would assembled herself after life broken her. Darling, when you fall in love, you would question everything. You would question why he has not replied to you even after two hours—does this mean he hate you? Does this mean he is with another girl? Did you do something wrong? You would question all the steps you’ve taken, all the words you’ve spoken, wondering if you said or did something wrong.
And please know that you did not do something wrong. When he refused to spend some time with you just remember the time you spent reading all those words that broadens your view of the world. When he do not have time to even talk to you just remember the time you strike up a conversation with a girl on the airport because you do not like the idea of sitting alone in a crowded space and you know that girl does not too. When he ignores you remember the time you ignored the tears and sweat after all the hardships that Life had sent you and proceed to walk, heads up and all to the top where you belong. When he chose his friends, remember how loyal you have been to your amazingly witty and sarcastic friends.
Remember to remember.
Remember yourself first.
For at the end, you would know that you only have yourself, and you are more than enough.
Thank You for long reading. Cheers! :)
