A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
I saw her plunged herself into the bed in a desperate manner, declaring “I’m stuck with my life!”. I didn’t know what it meant.She went on telling me how unadorned her life was. Office job from 9 to 5. Same stuff everyday. Same people. Boring boring.
Mockingly I reminded her of her upcoming wedding. “You’re gonna taste a brand new experience. The sacred “first night” and stuff.” (FYI, most -?- Indonesian girls remain virgin till they’re married).
To my great surprise, this silly notion didn’t stir her in the least. This was the girl who used to be raring to talk when it came to sex topics. Something was definitely wrong with her.
“Yeah, it’ll be something. But then I’m just following the common path. It is what everybody does.” she uttered.
“So? Everybody works and gets married and has babies, but in the end each life is unique, right? I mean, they all lead their own lives anyway.”
“But I wish I had more priceless experiences like you do..”
Good. So it was about ME after all.
“Hey-”, I began with a frown, “it’s not- “, but I checked myself.
She was my best pal. Graduated from Chemical Engineering Dept. at one of the best universities in Indonesia, she is currently working for an explosives manufacturer (or so). She knew me inside and out. She knew that I was 24 (old girl!), without a diploma (and hating my thesis), without a boyfriend nor fiancé nor Significant Other, without a steady job, without capital, simply without any prospects in life (seemingly). And not even pretty. *sigh*
By any standards, she should not envy me. It should be the other way around. But then life is a very funny thing, right? It is always amusing to see things turn upside down.
Yet it wasn’t amusing to see the look on her face. A damsel in distress, I thought. Or, to tell the truth, another damsel in distress. I remembered perfectly how several days back a friend called me, whining over the phone about her “disorientated life” (whatever that meant). Same complaints here.
So what was going on, actually? A quarter-life crisis? When you’re 25 and you have a nice steady job, you just get bored and wish you were 20 with a frivolous life again? When you finally obtain financial security (for most people it matters most), you start hankering for some inane adventures? Is it about the concept of wanting more, -about greed?
Or about wanting something you can’t have?
When I asked her if her life was that bad, she said nope, basically she was fine. She wouldn’t trade her life for mine, I dare say. Perhaps it was just kinda hard to accept –and adjust to- the fact that office work suited her best; that it was gonna be her fate forever. The thing about life is that you make a choice and you live with it. She chose the common path, yet I know it wasn’t easy to let go of the unlimited possibilities which were to be hers if only she had taken “the road less traveled”. The grass is always greener on the other side, they say. Life’s like that.
And perhaps 25 is just the age when you start pondering on your whole life all over again: to reveal the reason of your existence and the ultimate aim of your being. Old enough to be sensible (+ boring) and young enough to be nonsensical (+ trying). A viable, die-able age. Hence these damsels in distress.
By the way, about this “greener grass” she kept an eye on, -the celebrated “priceless experiences”. So far as I’m concerned, the list might well include being tried by a board of lecturers for writing opposing views, clashes with seniors, hate calls from jealous wives, getting entangled with divorcing guys, six-week attachment in a remote village (no clean water, no electricity, no mobile), two-month exhausting job training in world’s largest gas producer (offshore!), and two-week interpreting job at a disaster relief (plus three weeks of nightmare afterwards). Talk about a damsel in distress. I AM the damsel in distress! :-(
posted by eloque @ 5:35 AM
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