Hello,
How is your Sunday so far? I hope you’re resting well. Before we continue, I have a couple of announcement.
Tonight is the last opportunity for you to collect my book, “Magical Tales of Gandaloka: Welcome to the Fandom”. Starting tomorrow, the books are being recalled from bookstores and you won’t have a chance to buy them again. I’m also evaluating my writing career in regard to printed books, and it looks like I won’t print more books in a while. Maybe not ever. So get your copy of my one and only printed novella now. Order here.
Secondly, my weekly digital novella, “Katastrofe Mala”, is still going on. The third chapter is up already. You can read it by subscribing to Kumparan Plus. It’s Rp19,000 a month, cheaper if you subscribe for multiple months. You can also pay with Gopay. Read it here.
Now let’s move on to the memoir. I have so many stories in me, and I often think my best ones are often the ones about my shame. It’s hard for me to write about them; out of shame, but also out of fear that someone will use it against me. But I’m also curious if writing and publishing it would be the one that helps me to heal from the shame instead.
This story that I’m about to share is one of the things that drove me to write “Katastrofe Mala”. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I hope writing about it will show me the way to forgive myself.
I’m anxious, but also giddy. Please let me know if you enjoy reading this one.
Thank you. 💛
I grew up believing myself not good-looking enough. I feel so shallow writing about looks, knowing full well that it has nothing to do with a person's worth. Nevertheless, it's my truth: I care about how I look and how people look at me. It has created an inner turmoil that I'm still learning how to heal and deal with.
My closest cousins were two very beautiful sisters. They had light skin and straight black hair that made them look good in everything they wear. They were well-trained in piano-playing and singing that made them the center of attention in family events. Compared to them, I had sunburnt skin and unruly hair that told me no matter how hard I try, I'd never look as royal as them. Despite having the word 'princess' in my name, no Disney princess I grew up with looked like me. My parents didn't have the money to give me piano or vocal lessons, so I had no performing talents to show. Sure, I was smart—that's what I was, the smart kid of the big family; but what does it matter when my beautiful cousins were just as smart? They had the colorful grades to show for it. I was not special.
I think knowing that I'd never look as pretty as my cousins made me stop trying. My skin tans easily. I became darker with each day I spent biking around the neighborhood with my friends. But my mother grew up as a beautiful woman and her environment taught her to put high value in one's appearance. So she was trying to drill the same value in me.
She put me in skirts and high heels that I wasn't comfortable wearing. She stopped me from biking with my friends until I learned how to tie my hair in a proper ponytail. Her claws dug on my shoulders every time she reminded me not to slouch. She dictated what kind of hairstyle and clothes would look good on me, and I believed her, because what do I know about styles? As a kid, I saw my mother got rushed to the hospital for starving herself in order to stay thin. And eventually I learned to see everything wrong about myself in the mirror.
The funny thing is, even as a kid I never thought that there was such thing as an ugly face. I looked at people's faces, trying to figure out what makes one pretty or ugly, and I found that everyone was pleasant-looking. "Ugly" as a physical concept is such a weird one. It's a face you're born with, what can you do about it? It's the face you introduce to people; the face that appears in people's minds when they think of you; the face that communicates what you feel. The face that works just fine, as it should. How can a face be ugly?
I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled at my reflection. I looked nice. I thought I looked pleasant. But the more I looked at it, the more I found questions about my face. Why is my nose so big? Why does my gum show a lot when I smile? Why aren't my teeth bright and tidy? Why isn't my complexion clear and even? Why are my lips so dry and two-toned? Why aren't my cheekbones sharper? Why aren't my lashes longer? Why won't my hair fall the way I want it to? Why am I so ugly? Is this why I don't have a boyfriend, because boys can't stand looking at me?
I had no other aspiration in middle school, okay, because I already got the grades. So I compared myself to my conventionally pretty friends who started dating jocks as soon as they got to seventh grade. I didn't dream about competing with them, dating jocks and whatnot, but I was obsessed with romance. I thought having a boyfriend would prove that I was as desirable as my pretty friends. I guess I was competing with them after all.
The irony was, there was a few boys that expressed their interest in me in middle school. One of them was Guntur*. He played guitar in one of the school bands and he was good at it. He had a flop of hair that never touched any hair product. He wore these nerdy glasses and he was chubby. He was not one of the popular basketball jocks in my small school. He was very nice. When he told me that he liked me, I was flattered by the attention, but all I thought about was what would people think of me dating this boy. He was not cute enough. So I politely told him no, thinking I could do better. Inside I was feeling like the most horrible person in the world.
I could breathe a little easier in high school. I went to a huge Catholic school in Palembang. It was a school that regularly won science olympics. There were 2,000 very smart students in it. It was no place to be a queen bee. The most popular kid when I was a freshman was a very pretty and very smart Chinese-Indonesian 11th grader. She won the science olympics and a majorette of the school's marching band. She was also an OSIS member. And she was super nice. Nobody even thought about competing with her.
I feel like my old high school was too big and too academic-focus for the kids to compete on romance or sexually-charged social standing. We were busy with our own circles of friends. Just imagine. There were 14 classes of tenth graders, and there were 45 kids in each class. If something scandalous happened to one of us, there was a good chance the school at large wouldn't get any wind of it. The school was big and we were busy making grades.
And so I could breathe. I realized it was impossible to know everyone in this school, so I had no pressure to be popular. I was content with my own circle of friends. There was no it-girl to compete with or suck up to. We didn't have any incentive to shrink our uniforms the way teenage girls in Jakarta public schools did, because we were gonna be lost in the crowd anyway. Oh, I was still obsessed with romance, but for a different reason this time. I wanted the full high school experience. I wanted to be able to say that I had a boyfriend. And boy, how I almost got one.
There was a gang of senior boys that was popular within my circle of friends. These boys were in a band. In a school that cared so much about your grades, being an artist made you stand out. Especially when you performed in all of the school events. These seniors were friends with us because we were active in the same school organizations, mainly Paskibra and OSIS. We were thirsty for their attention and validation. We had a crush on them. And apparently one of them had a crush on me.
Chandra* was the math teacher's son. He was skinny, tall, and had dark skin. He was what we called a pujakesuma, putra-putri Jawa kelahiran Sumatera. He played guitar in the seniors' band. He was in OSIS. He was also in the science class that all of us had to pass on our way to the cafeteria. So we said hi when we met him and his friends during recess. Until one day, his friends started to make fun of him every time I said hello.
You know how silly high school boys can be. Not only the seniors made fun of Chandra, one of them even spilled that he had a particular interest in me. I was surprised and flattered, but what was I supposed to do with that? Chandra himself just smiled shyly and didn't say anything to me. So I just gave them an awkward laugh.
Our phones had no data back then and only the rich had internet at home. If we wanted to declare our love to someone, we didn't tweet or post it on a Facebook wall. We sent our love to the radio instead.
Every afternoon, I listened to Oz Radio. It was the only hip radio that had English-speaking songs on its playlist. When the songs weren't playing, the announcer would convey messages on behalf of strangers to those strangers’ friends or crushes. Most of the time I tuned it out. But one afternoon, I got a text telling me to turn on Oz Radio asap. It was already on, so I only turned the volume up. And then I heard it.
Ksatria Baja Hitam requested Ada Band's "Setengah Hati", dedicating it to dek Putri.
I froze. What the fuck just happened.
I broke out of my confusion when my phone vibrated again from a new SMS.
Denger dak? it said.
Apo dio?? I replied. Siapo satria baja itam???
Siapo lagi???
Chandra just sent me a song.
The next day at school, Chandra's friends roared with laughter and sang “Setengah Hati” at the top of their lungs. Chandra quickly came up to me and apologized. He said he heard about the radio request, but he didn't do it. It was his friends making fun of him. He apologized if they'd made me uncomfortable. I told him it was okay, please don't think about it. It was the longest conversation we ever had with each other.
And maybe his friends knew what they were doing, because after the radio incident, Chandra talked more to me. He texted me from time to time and we exchanged school stories. It wasn't flirty, he never asked me out or anything. Maybe he did like me, but I wasn't sure how much. Or maybe he was shy.
He waited until the seniors' farewell party to tell me that he liked me. As an OSIS kid, I was on the party committee. In the middle of the event, when everybody was eating, he asked to talk to me. We hung out at the hall entrance, our friends were looking at us. They seemed to know what was happening. Deep inside I was looking for an exit.
Chandra said I'd probably guessed what he wanted to say, but he still wanted to say it anyway. He liked me, and he hoped I felt the same way. He apologized for taking so long to tell me, because soon he was going to Jogja for college. He didn't ask me to answer right away. He just hoped I'd think about it. Then he left me alone.
I was smiling. Politely. Not because I was happy. I was actually stressed thinking about how to reject him without hurting his feelings. I told myself what was the point of confessing to me a few days before he was going away. I wasn't interested in a long distance relationship, and that's what I told him, that I couldn't do it. That was also what I told myself, because I didn't want to admit that I didn't find him cute enough for me. He said he understood and thanked me anyway. I was the most horrible person in the world.
Somewhere in the middle of my high school years, I spent the holiday in Jakarta. I reunited with my middle school friends. Most of them went to the same high school and they shared a lot of inside jokes. They were still my kind friends, but I could feel I was no longer in their in-group.
During one of these reunions, I met Guntur. I gasped when he appeared in the doorway. I saw this tall, dark man, with a broad chest. He had a buzzcut with sideburns running down his jaw. He had lost all his baby fat and sported five o'clock shadow instead. He was ... hot. I couldn't believe I was shallow enough to refuse him. I couldn't believe I was shallow enough to be attracted to him now that he's hot. Why was I such a horrible person?
But by then he was already dating somebody else. We said hi to each other and hung out together. He was really nice. But we didn't talk about what happened in middle school. I don't know if he remembered what happened, but I do.
After finishing high school, I returned to Jakarta for college. I went to law school and my world dramatically changed. The campus was smaller and had less people compared to my high school. There were some of us who hailed from outside of Jabodetabek, but a lot of them came from Jakarta. In my eyes they stood out so much. The way they dressed and talked, how they carried themselves, how they interacted with each other; the queen bees among them were obvious.
That sense of competition returned ten-folds. The independent studying and lack of supervision on college made me struggle. I relished having such freedom, but I also realized I had no one to blame but myself if I failed. And I didn't quite know where to place myself in the social hierarchy.
I wasn't friendless when I got to law school. I already had a couple of old friends there from back when I still lived in Jakarta. They introduced me further to their fellow Jakartan friends, and that gave me a place on their table in the cafeteria. But I rarely sat there. I felt too self-conscious in my hand-me-down clothes. I had no personal style, because my style was the style of whomever handed me down their clothes. I didn't know how to put on makeup nor how to groom myself to look pretty. Sometimes they invited me to join their parties, I always said no. I didn't have the clothes nor the money to keep up.
And then I started dating Rizky*, who was a year above me. I thought dating an upperclassman as a freshman would give me an edge. And it did give me an edge. I had networks to the seniors because of my relationship with Rizky. Did it make me happy? No. On the contrary, it made me anxious that I would lose everything in a heartbeat.
It was difficult because I had very strong feelings for Rizky but I didn't feel like it was mutual. Before we started dating, Rizky often told me about these two girls from his batch that he really liked. One was a very pretty, light-skinned girl, with soft speech and grace in her movement. The other was a strong, basketball player who was active in BEM and drove her own car to campus. Both were very smart. And I felt very small. Even when we had officially dated, Rizky wouldn't stop talking about them. That made me feel even smaller.
One evening, we were having dinner in a small rumah makan near campus. It was a cheap place. We sat on plastic chairs, eating under dim fluorescent lights. The television was on but the patrons' chatter was louder. We were eating in silence, then I realized that Rizky was staring at me. I stared back at him.
"Kok, kamu kelihatan cantik banget?" he said. His eyes were on me, but it didn't feel like he was seeing me.
"Thank you," I said with a smile. I was unsure, but also happy, because he rarely said such thing to me.
Then he answered his own question. "Oh, soalnya gelap."
He resumed his eating while I lost all my appetite.
I wish I could tell you that I dumped him on the spot. No, I endured his series of tiny disrespects for nine months of our relationship. Then I broke up with him.
A week later, I regret my decision. I missed him, and I wanted him back. He told me he couldn't, because he had started dating my junior, a light-skinned girl with more money than me. I thought my heart was going to stop beating. I ran away from him, passing the lobby, the student org headquarters, the courtroom, because I didn't want him to see me cry. I hid behind a wall in the small yard at the back of our campus and cried my eyes out. He chased after me. I turned my back on him, because I still didn't want him to see me cry. But he heard my sobbing. And he waited. When I stopped crying, he apologized and left.
It took a long time for me to heal from that relationship. I thought this must be my punishment for treating Guntur and Chandra the way I did. Rizky hurt me, and maybe I deserved it.
I wish the experience had made me wiser when it came to relationships. But it hadn't. I was a moving trauma on the loose, running headfirst into men who didn't love me. And there were many of them.
With each man I dated, I gained some seduction skills and my confidence grew a little bit. At one point, I even hooked up with a popular jock from middle school and a dashingly handsome senior from law school; boys I didn't even dare to dream of dating back when we went to school together. I could read men who were interested in me, and I knew how to make things intense between us. They just needed to bring themselves into my arms and I'd light the fireworks for us. What I didn't know was how to make them stay. And every time they left, I felt a little bit less pretty.
I think that says a lot more about me rather than those men. I went for men who would eventually leave me because I believed I wasn't worth staying for. And I refused men who treated me well, because I believed I wasn't good enough for them.
Whatever I was doing, it wasn't working.
When the pandemic arrived, I decided I didn't want to live this way anymore. I signed myself up for therapy. My therapist easily diagnosed me with Borderline Personality Disorder, especially after observing my history of relationships.
In the interpersonal effectiveness module, we were discussing the healthy skills I needed to learn in pursuing future relationships. He gave me a homework of listing down all the men I'd dated, crushed on, hooked up with, and been in a relationship with. I ended up with a very long list of men. It was a big enough pool, I could make graphic charts out of them. It was humiliating. This was a list of men I threw myself on in the hopes that they'd make me feel pretty. I thought if I believed I was pretty, then maybe I could also believe that I was worthy. And that sent me to therapy.
I submitted the list to my therapist. He made me review every single relationship I had with each man, no matter how brief. He wanted me to learn from all of them; keep the good habits, leave the bad ones. It took us three weekly sessions to exhaust the list. I learned that I did many misguided things that I should not repeat in the future. It made me wary about pursuing new relationships, but it also showed me one thing. This long list of men were interested in me. This was hard evidence that I was attractive. So maybe I could stop feeling so ugly.
I know how it looks like. In the end it was still men's validation of my appearance that made me stop feeling ugly. But it's only one contributor among other stuff I learned about myself in therapy.
I learned that I had an unclear self-image of myself. My anxiety had made me desperate for anything that made me feel good, even if that thing was a man who wasn't good for me. It was an impossible task for the men as well, because the only one responsible for how I feel is myself. So it's time for me to learn how to make myself feel good and loved without relying on a man's attention. It's time to figure out what I like about myself through my own lens instead of a man's. And I'm learning to like what I see in the mirror.
It's a work in progress. Sometimes I still have the old bad habit of pointing out what I don't like about my face when I stand in front of a mirror. But I've been doing small experiments on myself. I pay attention to how my body feels when I eat, exercise, and rest. I give my body the things it actually needs to be healthy and feel good instead of things I think would elevate how I look in front of others. It's the difference between a ten-step skincare that gave me dermatitis from over-exfoliation and the simple wash-moisturize-sunscreen routine that is better suited for my skin.
I'm starting to buy my own clothes based on my own preference and how I would like to present myself in front of others. I'm starting to have the courage to refuse my mother's hand-me-downs if the clothes aren't up to my style. My mother wears hijab now, so she has a lot of clothes to give away. She still cares about her appearance, but I think covering herself fully has lifted some burden from her shoulders about looking perfect. Yes, my mother had given me some mini trauma about my own appearance, but I know she was also a victim of her upbringing. Now it's up to me to break the cycle.
I'm determined to do things differently this time. Now that I'm not so caught up in how I look, I have more room to show my best qualities as a person. I also have more room to pay attention to a potential partner beyond their appearance. Slowly, little by little, I'm starting to understand what it is I'm actually looking for. I have less interest in comparisons now, though sometimes I still can’t help it. But as I had learned in high school, this world is big. There is room for all of us. All of these superficial competitions are meaningless. Look around, my friends. We are beautiful.