One Afternoon, in Ngurah Rai Int’l Airport
When we feel that we long for a significant other, or when we say we’re in love with a particular person, it is often a very revealing moment for ourselves. Often times, our attraction stems from appreciation of an idea, or attributes about them in which we are lacking. Our romantic tendency to long for someone are mostly based on the feeling of incompleteness we have towards ourselves.
Appreciation comes easy when we are faced with a person in which their quality excel far greater than we perceived ourselves to be. For example, we could appreciate someone who are good in self-financing, or perhaps very caring and warm. This is because we might be aware that those qualities are the things we do not really have. We might be a little clumsy in our finances, or perhaps we are often awkward and cold to new people. We long to complete ourselves, by finding the pieces we do not have.
Without we realising, our admiration or longing don’t always have to apply to our romantic partner. It could apply to anything. Like when we are longing for a new job, a new career, in deciding where to travel, or a new city to live in. We might be drawn into the beauty of old narrow streets in a European town, its warm afternoon, sidewalk cafes, and the laid-back ambience. We long for that, because we maybe living in a city with not much story of preserved heritage. It’s busy streets are deafening to our ears, the air polluted, and the way people live around us constantly remind us that we’re stuck in a rut.
In my recent travel to Bali, I can remember how I fell in love with everything this island have to offer. I remember how I wish I could spend my days in clean air, good breakfast, and have the view of the ocean in my wake. I thought of how I could take my time slowly and appreciate each day better, by watching the sunset at the end of each day. These are the thing I have been missing in my hometown, and I have developed my longing towards. It is very easy for me to come into snap judgement and decisions about moving in to Bali. I could embrace a long term relationship with this island, fulfill my longing, fall in love, and commit myself on having my love affair with the beauty of the island.
But then I remember, like two people who are able to fall in love, they are also able to fall out of love. When time does its magic towards our significant other, when it finally reveals them fully to us, we could suddenly, without our knowing think that we chose the wrong person. It is natural that the more we dedicate ourselves into a relationship, we realise we are eventually, irredeemably alone.
I finally understood that my longing for this island, are in fact an expression of the things I simply missed back home. There comes a realisation, that possibly, when the island life are fully revealed, it will give me another feeling of loneliness and anxiety. In the wake of my inevitable return from this trip, I have realised that I am anxious to bound back home. But I am just as anxious to imagine myself having to be committed, or in metaphor, to marry this island long term.
I came to this holiday trip, hoping to have a relief for my hometown anxiety. I haven’t got the things I wished for. I even came home with more fear and anxiety. But I also gained something more valuable: To accept the prevalence of anxiety that haunts each and every decisions we will made, and also the understanding of the logic behind our longing. Like our love life. Love come and go easily. The feeling of longing happens easily only when we are reminded of the things we do not have. In the end, familiarity takes action and longing fades. We will wake up to the same boring reality of a long-term relationship, the duty of household financing, the unattractive prospect of laundry, or the repulsive aspect of our significant other’s character revealed across time. What is unchanged is our commitment to anchor ourselves in the reality (and security) we know will be our consequence to our long-term decision.
Just like my recent travel taught me, we have to be aware of the source of our longing. The things we long for might not be easily available nor accessible in one’s hometown, but that never means our dream destination always have everything we need. In the end, it’s important for us to anchor ourselves to the reality (and security) that no matter where we live, no matter where do we decide to stand our feet, the sun rises and sets in the same direction. The sea will always send its love with its waves. The mountains will still be as sublime to our perception.
In short, no matter what the reality surrounds us, we could always anchor ourselves to the reality (and also security) that life continues in its own pace. Not the way we might hoped them to be, but always in its own beautiful, grandiose way.
Bali, September 2016