It's a thunderstorm outside. The rain seems to pour without mercy. The lightning breaks the darkness with a loud grumble. I am inside, calmly sipping my chilled wine. Maybe I am calm because a thunderstorm is breaking havoc in my too. Do people who are lucky enough to face the uncertainty of opening a new chapter face the same thing?

I am coming home. After three years of a certain study period, I am coming home. Why? That it a question I am yet to know the answer. I guess the hardest thing about living abroad is that flight back from home. Where the realization that your family is getting older without you grips your heart like a constrictor killing its prey.

I do not have anything waiting for me after I hand in my thesis this month. The job I wanted and worked hard for to continue my study did not happen. It started the thunderstorm, not because of not getting it but the questions it raised within me on where I would like my life to bring me.

When I was 5, a clown at a friend's birthday party asked me what I want to be when I grew up. I said I wanted to be a boss, like my dad. My dad could have never been prouder, boasting to everyone he knew how I wanted to be a boss. Another year later I wanted to be a president. Then a lawyer. A photographer. A war-journalist. A writer. A designer. An economist.

My study intrigues me. To help things out I found out soon enough that I am good at it. It developed me, challenged me and for that I am grateful for. But not getting that job made me realize of these passions I turned away from for the fear of not being good enough. The risks. The uncertainties.

I did not get the job I wanted. I do not know what I will do.

I enrolled myself to a summer French course, 4hrs a day from 9am for two weeks. I am taking the test tomorrow.

I am flying home in August, travelling first to Borneo and then back to Jakarta for the foreseeable future.

And I could not be happier.

Today started like any other day. Breakfast was enjoyed, clothes worn, things put in the bag. But bike would not start - the wheels could not roll. It was like a bird who hurt its wings, deprived of the simple pleasure of normality from flying. Someone had kicked the backwheel, and as the force pushed it the front wheel held firm to its post and was simultaneously bent.

After class, Bear helped me to bring my bike to the bikeshop. He examined the tires and predicted grimly. We tried nonetheless. Throughout the journey the wheels made the most heartbreakingly soft sound. It made me really worried. It was as if it was dying, lying there on its deathbed in silent suffering.

The verdict was final - Bikeguy confirmed Bear's belief. It will be too costly to repair - and even he advised against it. "It's not worth it," he assured us.

Bear looked at me sincerely and asked whether we should take it home and call someone to bring it to the bikegarbage, or should we release it into the wild unlocked and let it be stolen.

I swallowed hard. I would prefer to bring it home, yet the looming thought of it being shoven into a cage filled with broken bikes, waiting to be destroyed prevents me from deciding for it. If it would be left unlocked, some junkie will take it home, probably fix it and sell it to another student, giving it some more years.

The irony that I too had bought it from a junkie for 50bucks.

Bear stripped the flower bag off the back saddle, and chose a quiet neighborhood and unlocked it. I stood further away, watching Bear watch me and pat it goodbye. My eyes felt warm. I realized how heart broken I was seeing this bike which had been with me for almost 3 years, for as long as I have been living here in NL.

:(

I guess that is life - you get dependent on something, and the next thing you know randomly a stranger just comes along and kick it beyond repair.

Mnyaaaaaaaa

It is late at night. My fingers are tired of putting in data into excel, a typical day as thesis deadline draws near.

The numbers I am putting in became a routine, in the search of efficiency my brain saw the number and focused on transferring it into my database. The number is the number of people who died from collective violence in Indonesia's provinces in 1990s-2000s.

My eyes grew accustomed to the numbers, ranging from 0 to 1000 at a point in time. They became numbers, the deaths. Slowly I began asking why. Slowly I began pondering about the people behind the numbers.

Having lived and studied in the Netherlands, where convenience and safety is a birthright, I began to contrast things with my country - where I was born, where chaos is constant. Is that why I decided to write my final thesis on it?

The mind ponders. The fingers type. The night serenades. The number stays.

An email arrived, a reply from a friend regarding my birthday invitation. As I will be celebrating it in the Netherlands and she resides in the US she is unable to make it. "We'll have a little celebration for you in New Orleans..."

A rush of missing gripped my heart. I miss my friend. I met her in Paris during our semester abroad last Fall. We met during the introduction weekend, she was a nice American girl living 2 storeys above my flat. Foreigners in a country we were excited to explore, we became friends. We travelled together, found joy in croissants and brie, shared bottles of wine.

After 4 months, politeness subsided and we stopped being nice to each other. That was when we became friends. Rough moments in missing families, lives prior, friends and boyfriends. It felt so long yet so short now.

When I was waiting for my train back to Rotterdam in December, talking to her in person for one last time over a glass of beer in Gare du Nord, did we finally realize how far we will be. We both know it will be years until we can poke and laugh at each other again for inherent loserness, perhaps that was what made it so hard.

Missings.

The bitterness reminds one to appreciate each moment, each person, you and me. Wake up, tell those you love just that, that you love them. For everything can change in the blink of an eye. One day we are going to wake up with just that. Missings.

Don't let it pass you by.

I miss you, friend, wherever you are.

NvP to me:

"I appreciate having my own place, being able to study econometrics, to be a healthy person with no physical disabilities, to be in the honours class, living in peace, knowing so many great good people like you, to be free, to be loved & to be able to love, to have food every day against almost no cost...

Life is so easy.. So good.. I often just dont realize we're in fact in a paradise of freedom.. And that sometimes makes me unworthy of the life I was given.. So its time for me to appreciate more!

What do you appreciate in your life? :)"

I went to an art supply store today to get cartons. On the way to the staircase, I noticed a woman painting. She was painting with all combinations of blue, mixing together and forming another beautiful shade that is nowhere else but there. I stopped and watched her moving her brush, the brush was dancing left and right, intently and relaxed. It was beautiful.

"It's beautiful," I said to the woman with a white apron which was covered in blue paint.

She was startled, looked at me and smiled so sincerely I still smile because of it.