Hello! Happy new year! So nice to see you back here. Hope your emotional landscape’s doing OK :-)
Today is my wedding anniversary with Tyo. 7 years of dating. 5 years of marriage. 12 years together. Wow. This is my second longest relationship ever, next to me and my fucking Twitter account (it’s been 14 years and still going strong thank you for asking). Even after all this time, sometimes I still wonder, how could someone love me and stay with me all these years and deal with all my nonsense? Not trying to be self-deprecating (although I love to do this), but I am called to remember all the times I have been heartbroken, all the tears I cried because I had all this love with “no one to give it to”, all the doubts and fears. I want to reflect on how I used to see love and how I see love now.
I used to be on the prowl for guys to love — or so I thought. But the actual idea of commitment and being in a relationship scared the hell out of me. I have always thought that being in a relationship means the end of the line, it seemed so final, like I’d be locked down forever with no chance of escaping. I had no idea how to date, how to love, how to care for someone else other than myself. So, the minute a guy started to show their interest in me, I kept my cool, steered clear of my feelings, and ran away from any aspect of commitment.
Maybe I could put the blame on my stoical nuclear family. Raised as an only child, I didn’t know how to express love and care and show my feelings. My parents never show any affection towards each other, or even to me. Most people would think that being the only kid, means you have a tight-knit close relationship with your parents. Sadly, that’s the opposite for me. I have never been brought up to be transparent with my feelings. Instead I was encouraged to shovel them up inside or dump them somewhere else. I was raised to be independent therefore I had this notion that I don’t need a guy to save me, and this has become my way to live for so long.
Maybe I was also looking for love in the wrong places, which obviously led up to a string of unfulfilled and unhealthy romantic quests. I have spent good years of my life staying away from the prospect of partnership and kept my heart guarded. The truth is, I was so good at being on my own that I believe I was not capable of being in a relationship or I did not think of myself as worthy to be loved. I wasn’t great at feeling love and I was afraid to feel my feelings. I have always taken a shallow pride in maintaining the image of the cool, cold-hearted bitch who doesn’t know how to love.
When I like someone or see someone in a relationship, I used to wonder how can we tell if the fixations will last and which are temporary? How can we know which are fruitful and which lead to a dead end? How do we know if we are not wasting our time? There were so many questions and doubts and fears running through my mind. I was so scared that my views would change when I developed feelings. How do I do things on my terms and how do I keep those terms from being too intense? Why do I feel like being with someone is a dependence? How do I manage the closeness but still keep a distance between me and this person? What if they ask things from me that I could not give? How could it not change things? How do we know if we are with the right person?
Tyo and I met on Twitter in 2009. I know, what a classic modern love story. Later we met in real life for the first time at Jakarta Rockin’ land through a mutual friend. We grew closer and although we spoke to each other with mutual adoration and respect, it wasn’t the right time for both of us. Two years later, he asked me out to see the Planetarium and I invited him to watch an old Indo movie at the legendary yet abandoned, dirty, smoke-filled cinema that is Bioskop Grand Senen and since then, my life has not been the same.
I have never had any real, serious, meaningful, relationship before I met Tyo. So, in the first few months of dating him, I found myself overthinking through this newfound intimacy and commitment that I never dared to explore before. I did not know what to do with all these feelings and it was difficult for me to be present when vulnerability was required. My protective defense mechanisms started to make an appearance and I started to drift back to my usual guarded tendencies. All those fears and anxiety are crippling in my head, making me doubt him, myself and this relationship.
Somewhere along the line, I managed to let go of my old sense of self. I wish I could take all the credit to myself but that would be an exaggeration. I was so set on my own ideas for so long but Tyo, for some miraculous reason, managed to push back all my fears and help me embrace this moment. I’m slowly finding the courage to be vulnerable and I wasn’t afraid to be affectionate and express my feelings without the fear of judgment or being hurt, because for the first time, I’m with someone that I could trust. Throughout our time together, I have learned to expand the idea of love beyond it being a source of shelter or comfort and instead allowing myself to see that being in love and in a relationship meant to help myself evolve beyond my comfort zone.
Earlier I mentioned one of the things that I always wonder about being in a relationship — how do we know if we are with the right person? I have come to an understanding that when it comes to romantic partnerships, the idea of being with the “right” person is a fallacy. There is no universal truth about romantic rightness. All of us are guessing our way through it all and writing our own rules based on what feels good or seems right.
Society has fed us the fiction story that falling in love is the answer to our problem, that having a perfect partner will solve everything for us. No one is perfect so it’s impossible to find the perfect partner. But then again, how do we define “perfect”? What feels right and perfect for me, might not be applicable for you, vice versa. All this time, I thought that being in a romantic relationship means that person should be able to provide me with everything. But relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You have to identify which qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and accept that if they cannot provide you with 100% and that’s totally fine. What did you identify as essential to you? Good conversation, let’s say, or intellectual compatibility, or sense of humor, or sexual chemistry or stability or freedom — you can have three of those things and the rest you can find in someone else. If you keep trying to find everything, you will end up with nothing.
I have now viewed a relationship as one in which both people had recognized the best of what the other person had to offer and had chosen to value it as well. Usually we imagine that a good relationship will always have sizzling attraction and never ending butterflies, full of love and light. In truth, the essence of true love is mutual recognition — two individuals seeing each other as they are. True love is something meaningful and something stronger, like feeling safe, and free, and comfortable with each other without worrying about maintaining gendered performances.
Even after more than a decade together, Tyo and I are still learning and growing. Just because we are together for so long doesn’t mean we have figured each other out and know everything. I think love is not just an enthusiasm, it’s a skill. It’s something that we have to learn and we can make progress with and it requires hard work. Because being in a committed relationship is never going to be easy, no matter who you are with.
I feel like we are living in an unromantic age with everyone searching for love, but too few with courage to embrace it when it’s in front of them and I used to see love as a big leap off a cliff. But it didn’t have to be so dangerous or dramatic. I have learned and realized that love is not something you search for, grab and try to keep. It’s something you open yourself up to, allow to graciously unfold, and embrace without the fear of what might or might not happen.
So, thank you Tyo for taking a leap of faith in me and choosing to stay. Through all of these small moments — those lovely weekends strolling around the city with our coffee, those countless hours wasted deciding where to eat, those after work dinner and movies at home, even the painful fights and screaming matches — I know that I’m blessed to meet someone who speaks my language, so I don’t have to spend a lifetime trying to translate my soul.
And I wouldn’t want to go through this journey with anyone else, in any version of lifetimes, in any alternate universes, I would find you and still choose you. Thank you for these beautifully complicated feelings I have encountered since we were together. Thank you for always trying to be there through rainstorms and rainbows. Thank you for giving us a space to explore different interests, meet different people, become our own person. Thank you for being my best friend. Most importantly thank you for staying. Even when things don't make sense. I hope I have provided you with the same.
I’ll see you later x
Gita
💐 Our wedding playlist <3 💐