Amanda's moving castle

I think I used to sabotage myself so much that I did, with full consideration, work 3 jobs, in 3 different provinces, at once (while also juggling other non-job-related pursuits), just to distract myself from having quite 'big emotions' over some things. My stupid self thought that if I stayed busy enough, I would not have the time for those feelings and worries. 

Turned out, I didn't even have the time to really look within myself.

My friend even called my car 'Amanda's moving castle', referring to 'Howl's moving castle', which is true, because I literally 'lived on the road' and did the craziest, foolish kinds of stuff in it LOL

Thinking about it now, it was more like overcoming burnout by doing other burnout-causing activities. 

Jungkir balik kaya yakin umur panjang aja wkwk ah ada2 saja dia yang mulia. sampai tiap mau tidur dan waktu makan, terharu karena bersyukur banget atas nikmat masih punya makanan dan tempat untuk berlindung hwhwhw (now I realised I underestimate my ability to stay positive at any condition lol)

I used to hate my closest people for being workaholics and not having hobbies or interests to pursue outside work and then how I turned into one myself. Though I would deny it if I was called a workaholic at that time. I would say that those were temporary and just obligations that I had to do to get into better states later.

It could come from the ingrained idea in the culture in my field of work, where (sometimes, unconsciously) we put our self-worth in our jobs. We centre our lives around medicine. All other things (family, hobbies, etc) would be heavily adjusted to accommodate our career ambitions. While in fact, those are what make us a whole human.

It's where we feel we are not doing enough, wondering if we could push ourselves a little bit more so that it may change the course of an outcome, how easy it is to feel left behind, however hard our efforts and good our intentions are, we are the ones to blame at the end if something falls out of place, and we (I) are taught to just accept it. it was normal and we just need to push through it. it'll get better once you reach higher positions.

I remember one night sitting at the nurse station while doing my night shift, staring blankly at the computer screen, imagining if I finally succeeded in becoming 'someone' they told me to be. Having close observations into my seniors' lives, I asked myself, "What? is that really something I want to do for the rest of my life? Or for how long should I stay like this, being told to just accept all the wrongdoings that go against my morals?”,

and the question of "Ya Allah, isn't there something I need to do in my life other than this??" led me to this journey of restarting it all over again lol

So far, it's been "exciting".
I even did a lot of crazier sh*t (if I have the mood I'll tell them one by one here LOL. Stay tuned!)
But more importantly, I feel... richer? (no, not materialistically of course) because of the wider spectrum of thoughts and feelings (in a good and fulfilling way) that I experience during this journey.

In the end, I am starting to see that I would not care anymore if I got to that expected point in my life. What matters are the in-betweens. I mean, I'll keep trying but the end result is in His full control. I just need to make sure I 'enjoy' those 'in-betweens'.

We may never get to where we want to be in life, how hard we try, but along the journey, we will find what we search for. If we don’t, we will adjust and adapt just well and by God's will, we end up getting what we need. Besides, we never know how long we will live and whether we can finally enjoy what we think is our fulfilled ambitions.