One morning, with a clouded mind

"Self-love is fucking overrated."

I said this morning, in front of the mirror, as blood dripped down my right palm really slowly because I was stupid enough to grab the cutter by its blade and injured my own hand. I felt the sharp, piercing pain from the cut, and yet I breathed out in relief. For the last few days my head has been a very busy place and it's not exactly in a good way. Doing foolish thing like getting myself cut was actually helping because at least the noise inside my head died down, overshadowed by the distracting pain across my palm.

Barangkali jika hidup saya adalah sebuah kisah dalam novel pop, maka saya bukan merupakan seorang tokoh utama yang bagus. Editor-editor mungkin akan membenci saya yang kerap menatap keluar jendela bus (terutama TransJakarta karena nyaman, sejuk, dan bebas pengamen fakir upaya yang kerap ditemukan pada Kopaja dan Metromini) dan melamun. Mempertanyakan apa ada yang bisa diharapkan dari masa depan. Sejatinya saya ini, setitik bakteri di semesta, apa cuma hidup sebagai perwujudan ambisi orang tua untuk berketurunan dan mati sekian tahun kemudian. Bertanya-bertanya sebenarnya hidup enaknya dipakai ngapain. Apalagi kalau miskin. Social script level medioker yang diikuti sebagian besar masyarakat seperti menikah dan beranak-pinak semata-mata berdasar argumen "Mumpung masih muda" sama sekali tidak terdengar menarik di telinga. Gimana mau sukses kena pitching propaganda pernikahan kalau aset tidak punya dan orang yang ingin diajak (dan bersedia diajak) hidup bersama pun tidak ada? Marriage is a constitution indeed, but to live with it is not as simple as, "Eh lo belum punya temen ya? Ya udah kerja kelompok bareng gue, mau nggak?"

Oh, tapi untuk urusan kerja kelompok sih saya sering jadi favorit banyak orang. The one who cleans up everyone's mess. The one who says, "Ayo fokus, ini belum dibahas. Itu juga belum didiskusikan" in group discussion every time the topic went somewhere else. Tidak asyik dan terlalu serius, kata orang-orang. Saya tipe manusia yang kadang-kadang dianggap dibutuhkan untuk membantu mendongkrak IPK, namun tidak pernah diundang ke acara pesta.

So there are days when you wonder if people are actually liking you. Sometimes you hear yourself saying, maybe also in front of the mirror as you dress for the day, "Bodo amat orang mau suka sama gue atau nggak! Take it or leave it!" Because you are a bad-ass person. You are strong. You kick ass. You do everything by yourself to this day. You are independent and all. You don't care about what people say. You ditch all those 'toxic humans'. But then when you see some certain faces, like a boomerang flying back to you at full speed, that wondering and unanswered questions come back home. Even worse when you don't really like yourself to begin with.

"Hey, do you like me?"

"What makes you stay?"

"Is it okay for me to be here?"

"What do you see in me?"

"Can I tell you something that I'm so afraid to tell other people?"

Kata-kata dan pertanyaan yang biasanya hanya mati di ujung lidah. Tercekat di tenggorokan. You can't ask that. Because you need to be strong. And you are strong. You are a bad-ass person. You kick ass. You can do everything by yourself to this day. You don't need any validation from other human being. You can't be weak, or sounds weak. Menyuarakan pertanyaan-pertanyaan tersebut akan membuat orang-orang berkomentar, "Kenapa sih? Menye banget lo. Jangan baper-baper, lah!" dan itu adalah hal yang tidak diharapkan. 'Menye' is not strong. 'Baper' is bad. So you swallow them all.

Nevertheless, you still wonder whether people like you or not. And you think, "Why should they like you, let alone love, when you don't even like yourself?" Di luar sana orang-orang selalu beramai-ramai mengkampanyekan self-love, mengatakan bahwa seseorang baru bisa dicintai―atau mencintai―orang lain setelah dia mencintai dirinya sendiri. "You should love yourself first," they say. "Don't forget to love yourself," they remind you every day. So you start to question, quietly, of course, letting the sentence just roam inside your head: "Does that mean I don't deserve and I am not supposed to love someone, or to be loved by one, simply because I fail to love myself?"

That makes you angry. 

Angry and disappointed, for your incapability of doing something that everyone think you should do. And, if anything, makes you hate yourself even more for not even able to love yourself. Does that make sense? They say, "To love yourself is easy". They say, "You just need to take care of yourself. Wear clothes you like. Eat good stuffs. Do things that makes you happy."

Guess what?

You can wear your best dress and still don't really care if you're hit by a bus. You can take care of yourself, slathering that face with moisturizer every morning, cleanse that makeup off your face every night, doing fun things with other people, having fun with yourself by doing things you like, and before bedtime you realize that you still hate yourself. Surprise, surprise. Self-love is fucking overrated.

z. d. imama