"SOME SCARS TAKE A WHILE TO HEAL..." in "WRITER@WORK: Stories From A Lone, Urban Girl"

I’ve been getting ‘signs’ from the universe lately. No, I’m not talking about something superstitious or scary. Spiritual, yes. Religious? Hmm, let’s not get ourselves too far ahead here.

Anyway, I feel that God is telling me something.

I know that people generally mean well, but let’s just face this: they don’t understand everything. They think they always know what to do and can’t accept the fact that yes, they can sometimes be clueless too.

Every Eid holiday or family gathering in Indonesia, it’s been considered normal to ask such personal (but somewhat annoying) questions like these:

“Why are you still single at this age?” / “Why aren’t you married yet?”

“When will you have kids?” / “Have you tried anything to have any?”

“Have you got a job already?” / “At that company? Do they pay you well?”

“You’re putting on weight. Have you tried this diet yet?”

Seriously, many Indonesians – especially the older generations – still think it’s okay to ask such personal yet intrusive questions. Thankfully, some people have already got a wake-up call and rejected the idea. They find the questions rude and rather judgmental.

“Besides, it’s none of their damn business,” some of them would reason. “They have no right to pry.”

However, the other party (and those who take their side) are offended. They come back with a rather defensive argument:

“At least some people still give a damn about your well-being. Why do you have to feel offended by such questions? They’ve been considered okay for years. Why the change?”

Well, I can say that everyone is entitled to their own opinions. Not much I can do about that, though. What’s often missing – or lacking – here is the empathy. Both sides should be aware of that.

Some scars take a while to heal. It’s not a matter of one’s strength or weakness. Not all wounds can be treated the same way. One type of medication may not heal all.

It’s the same thing with heartbreak. I know that most people mean well, but when they insist that you move on quickly by starting out with someone new…

I don’t know. I just don’t find that right. Maybe it works for some people, while others end up treating the someone new as just a ‘rebound’. How fair is that, if that person really feels for you?

People are different. Some feelings run deeper. They can’t be compelled. You can’t tell them that they’re being such weakling, cry-babies. That’ll only push them away. They’ll stop talking to you, eventhough what you say may be true at some point.

If you look closer, you’ll see genuine love gone unappreciated, played around, discarded like an unwanted broken toy. How would you feel if it were your love?

I talked to this nice lady I know last Eid holiday. She told me about her son, a divorced husband after just 18 months of marriage.

“You shouldn’t worry about what people think of you when you choose to wait after a breakup or a divorce,” she said. “Sometimes they see what they only want to see. My son…it took him a while to start getting to know a woman again after having been cheated on. It hasn’t been easy.”

No, it never is.

“People can make a fuss about anything they like, especially just because they think they’re entitled to do so,” she went on. “You can try as hard as you may for anything or anyone you want. But in the end, it’s still up to God. You’re the only one who knows when you’re ready – not them.”

Her last sentence brought me back to one conversation I’d had with my late father at a wedding. He’d patted my head gently, smiled, and said:

“You’ll know when you’re ready.”

I get it. It’s impossible to expect the whole world to understand us. Not all walk in the same shoes. Even if they do, they’ll probably choose a different route that what you might consider. We never know.

Some people are dull and shallow enough to think that if you’re single or have been left behind for so long or most of your life, there must be something seriously wrong with you. They don’t see that even the most unpleasant people are still lucky enough to have partners.

Maybe, it’s just not their time yet. There’s no point in making them feel bad or ugly. That doesn’t even make you a better person.

In the end, you don’t need to prove any of them your point. You’re the best (and sometimes the only) person to acknowledge, understand, and heal your scars…of your own accord.

R.