I wish my phone is broken

So that I can have a valid reason to not reply.

There comes a time where I just want to run out the door, take the train, hop on the next plane. Make it as if I was dead, move to a place a little bit off the grid with a new name and live amongst strangers. I think this has something to do with my habit as a child: I will re-start the game in a new save slot, with the knowledge that I have after playing the game for a bit so that I can do things perfectly this time. Efficiently. No room for terrible mistakes. Maybe it has something to do with my fear of being perceived. The more intimate it gets, and if my name gets discovered, my desire of disappearing once again resurface.

Maybe I need to forgive myself.

I wish my phone is broken, or make it as if it broke down. I’ll try a new method this time. Throw it from the 22nd floor, put it inside a frying oil. Maybe I will stop seeing: yet again terrible news, global warming, Gaza, my ex stalking my socials, family crying and screaming, work burden, friends getting married, friends getting promoted, Indonesia’s presidential election, mess, gorgeous girls who I’ll never be or match up to, social obligations and the need to exist.

I thought once I turn 25 I’ll get it figured out. Move to a new country and do the things that I dreamt of. I finally got the phone that I wanted — I swore to myself I will take 3 years to change my phone or I label myself close to consumerism. Yet midway 25 I want to throw it away. Maybe it will erase a part of me that I dislike. I will wake up smiling with no need to maintain anything. Blissfully ignorant.

Maybe then I’ll feel better about myself.

I wish I didn’t notice. The change of someone’s behavior, the words they say. I wish I’m as strong as I make myself look. My fear of being perceived probably stem from eyes watching me as I try to not crumble, juggling all through what is happening. Trying to sit pretty, to be grateful, and act like I figured everything out. But mother was not born as mother, she was a girl like me too, delirious, terrified of what to come. She was a bride, and she was a teenage girl longing to be loved, to be pretty.

I was also born as me, and 25 seems like a lie.

I didn’t change at all, much from Miriam’s sudden death 3 years ago. I’m still thinking of her, my childhood friend and a blueprint of my hobbies. On my phone that I haven’t thrown inside a frying oil yet I re-read our messages on Facebook as a child. I guess grief does get easy by time but on quiet moments I pray. It took me 2 years and ending a relationship to be brave to talk about her. 2 weeks to give my condolences to her mother. 2 days to finally stop crying.

I ran away.

I swore to myself to face my fear, apologize, and forgive myself for all what I’ve done wrong. The practice gets hard. I escape, I want to not exist and I wish my phone is broken.