Minggu, 23 Juni 2019

bandung, part 1

I know this is late af, but I just want to share it. I mean, after the whole 25/26 years, I finally celebrated new year with someone besides my churchmates.
A little background, my churchmates are my childhood friends. We met up every single week ever since we were born, and as we grew up and became real friends, some of us hang out together even more than once a week. So, imagine that we’ve met each other once every week, and even more for 25 years.
Yeah, they really are not my friends anymore. They are more like brothers and sisters, even more than my own brothers and sisters by blood.
It’s a bit icky to admit this, but this is fact. Okay, moving on.

I always celebrated new year with them. Ever since I was allowed to celebrate new year without my parents observation, that is. I’ve tried to plan my new year with other friends, let’s say college friends, but it just didn’t work out. Even when I finally didn’t celebrate new year in church (yeah we churchmates celebrate our new year in church because we were broke and couldn’t afford a place), I still celebrated it with my...churchmate.
Classic.

Anyhoo, I celebrated last new year with few friends in Bandung. We’ve known each other for a year because we met in the church (YES STILL CHURCHMATES) and we the family less friends decided to hang out. So we did.

I was actually really giddy, you know. I mean, these are new friends. I never thought I would make new friends. Well, this could lead a whole other post, but let’s stop there for now and just get back to the story.
I went out to but drinks and nuggets on the D-Day, because I didn’t have refrigerator and I wanted to keep them as fresh as possible. I also just found out that the carrot cake in Setiabudi Market is awesome, so, score!
We had our little celebration in Eric’s place (I know, another Eric for churchmate. Hey, they look a bit similar too!). The place was uber awesome!
So, he (or his dad) owned this 5-story building in Sudirmam, a street famous for piggy cuisine. It was located close to the alun” and basically just laid in the centre of the city. The uber awesome part?
It had a rooftop.

The view from the rooftop was absolutely amazing. We could see the unending fireworks from Alun Alun up close. Not to mention the competitive neighbors who thew fireworks right on the top our heads. But the most spectacular one must be from 23 Paskal Mall, which wasn’t far. They must spend millions on fireworks that awesome. Oh, also you could see Lembang, the glittery night view with hundresd of little fireworks. So beautiful.

Of course, I had a new year resolution this year. I really want to finish a novel.
It was hard, especially with me keep having ideas for new novels and my worktime. Seriously, I must applaud Ko Angga for succeding  finishing his even tho he worked. He is also my writing partner, and the one to inspire me to really finish mine…because he finished his 10 years novel already. I also want to achieve that!

This year is just different. I am surrounded by other people except my peers back in Jakarta, which was something I just never imagined before. I found a new awesome friend who is just superb at photo hunting and supporting me to find new dreams. We grow up closer I kinda like how we hang out together.
 I don’t know how this year will end, but I intend to enjoy it.
I feel like this year God wants to teach me something. I don’t know if I can fully absorp it or not, but I want to learn. Like it or not, this is a year of change, and my faith to Him is one thing that will never chnage, but will grow deeper, taller and stronger. I might fall from time to time, but my confidence is this: He will always pick me up.

Amen!