Olivia Rodrigo will release her upcoming album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love next month, and that title has stayed in my head lately. If I had to rename it into something that feels closer to my own life, mine would probably be: “You seem pretty sad for a woman living pretty well.”

Because my life is pretty good, Alhamdulillah. My personal life is quite stable and grounded. I have a career and education I worked very hard for. I get invited into rooms I once only dreamed of entering. I teach, volunteer, mentor, create content, and get to meet brilliant people along the way. Sometimes I still pause and think, “How did I even get here?” because a part of me still feels like the young girl from a small village who used to doubt herself so much.

And yet, despite all of that, there are nights when I still go home feeling unbearably empty. That contradiction is difficult to explain.

People usually see the visible parts of my life: the achievements, the confidence, the public presence, and the responsibilities. Then, they kept setting high expectations for me, like I must always deliver the highest standards. When I deliver less than expected, people would think I didn't do my best, even when it is already enough. They do not always see how exhausting it can be to constantly become “the high achiever” when I am just a normal human. They ignored the fact that in those moments, I was in so much pain that even functioning was already an achievement for me. 

Recently, I realized why it was even more tiring for me: becoming useful is probably my survival mechanism since I was a kid. Useful people are appreciated, needed, and remembered. So I spent years trying to become competent enough, dependable enough, valuable enough. I became the person who handles things, who solves problems, who cleans the mess, who checks whether everyone else is okay first. And after doing that for so long, it gradually becomes my identity.

There is also a strange confusion in constantly being needed. Because when people know you mostly for what you can provide, a small part of you begins to wonder: “If one day I stop being useful, would people still stay?” And maybe that question hurts me more than I usually admit.

Not because the people around me are bad people. Most of them are genuinely kind. But I think when you spend years earning validation through competence, you slowly become afraid that your worth only exists in your ability to give. When you start noticing the disappointment in people’s eyes whenever you fail to meet their expectations, you slowly arrive at a conclusion: maybe people only truly see you when you are useful to them.

Sometimes, I think what I truly want is actually very simple: to be seen as a human, with her flaws and weaknesses. To be understood and accepted as deeply as I try to understand other people. I spend so much time paying attention to other people’s feelings, trying not to hurt them, trying to make them feel seen, trying to love them gently. And sometimes I wonder whether someone will ever love me with that same depth and care, too. Not because I want grand gestures. But because after spending so much of my life becoming emotionally attentive to others, a part of me longs to finally feel carefully held, too.

***

Life has humbled me enough to realize that achievements do not automatically heal my longing for genuine acceptance. Recognition does not automatically create understanding. And being surrounded by many people does not always remove the feeling of being emotionally unseen.

For a long time, I thought becoming more successful would finally make me feel emotionally secure. But healing, apparently, has very little to do with external validation.

Lately, I have been trying to understand myself more gently. Maybe I am not sad because my life is bad. Maybe I am simply emotionally tired from spending too much of my life trying to earn love through usefulness.

And maybe healing is learning that I deserve softness even when I am not performing. Learning that my worth is not tied to productivity. Learning that the people who truly love me will still stay, even when I have nothing to offer except my honest, human self.

I still do not fully know how to solve this feeling yet. But perhaps this is the first honest step: admitting that beneath all the accomplishments and expectations, I am still just a human being who wants to be loved not for what she can provide, but simply for who she is.

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“I have so much love in me that I would like to cry;” — Simone de Beauvoir, Diary of a Philosophy Student: Volume 1, 1926–27

Hi, a certain name.

 
I don’t really know how to begin this, so I’ll just start with the secret I have been hiding for the past three years. I’m writing this knowing there may never be a moment in my life where I get to say even a single word to you: no conversation, no accidental meeting, not even a passing greeting. Though we live in the same city, I calculated that the possibility that we become acquaintances is like squaring a circle. And maybe that’s exactly why I feel the need to write this. So that at least, somewhere in this world, these unspoken words exist.

I first heard your name in passing. It was a normal, ordinary, brief introduction. Just a friend mentioning you casually, “I have a friend named .....(your full name) who I think you’d have a good conversation with,” and then the conversation moved on, like names always do.

But yours didn’t.

It lingered in a way I couldn’t quite explain, as if something inside me recognized it. Your existence was almost like a fantasy I hadn’t realized I was holding. It's like coming across a character in a fictional story and knowing that this is someone you would root for until the very end.

Curiosity led me to learn more about you. I searched your name, pieced together fragments of your thoughts, your perspectives, the way you express yourself, the way you treat people, and the way you carry your presence. And the more I came to know, the more something settled deeper in me: it wasn’t just admiration.

I let myself wonder about our compatibility: the kind that feels like two people could meet in the middle and understand each other without trying too hard. But that thought didn’t stay long. Reality reminded me of something obvious: for someone like you, there are a bunch of women who hope for that possibility and imagine that version of a story.

So I will remain here, in my small corner of this town, imagining the simplest things. What it would feel like to sit across from you and have a deep conversation. What it would feel like to meet in the middle of the Karet Pinisi Bridge, where our days might have already passed each other as our offices are just across. Let me imagine that after a long, tiring day, your calm smile is there waiting for us to come home together.

In my imagination, I can see the glow of the city billboards across the bridge reflecting on your face. Your eyes curving into crescents as you smile, as if for a brief moment, the world becomes lighter around you. And in that imagined stillness, we simply exist, side by side. That feels like enough. That's more than enough.

It’s funny, isn’t it?

You don’t know me. Not even a little. And yet, I find myself wanting to tell you stories. About the secrets I wouldn't tell a soul but you. About the quiet battles no one sees. About the mundane, ordinary details of everyday life, but promise you I will learn storytelling skills so they don't sound boring. About the things that don’t sound important, but I know you would smile/laugh at, so I will tell you anyway. 

And I find myself wondering about yours, too. What did you do today? What makes you laugh without holding back? What occupies your mind on days when everything feels too heavy to carry? What moments in your life have ever brought you to tears? If I ever had the chance, I would want to listen without rushing, interrupting, or trying to fix anything. I'm there just to understand you, little by little.

But again, I understand where I should stand. I understand myself well enough that I come with the weight of a life that has been broken and rebuilt too many times. Meanwhile, you seem like someone who carries light with ease, someone who deserves someone just as bright. I am sure you don't want to spend your exciting and joyful life with someone so pitiful like me*.

I would never want to be the one who dims your light. Let this be a one-sided kind of adoration that doesn’t demand, doesn’t expect, doesn’t even try to reach. Let it exist as a secret between me and Allah. Let you be a name I mention with tears of gratitude as you exist in the same world with this pathetic self. I'm happy that you were born and grew up to be a magnificent man. That's all.

I wish you all the beauty this world has to offer, every kind of happiness to find you effortlessly, and every kind of peace choosing to stay.

And lastly, as Sapardi once wrote: “Aku mencintaimu, itu sebabnya aku tak akan pernah selesai mendoakan keselamatanmu.” You are loved more than you will ever know**. Meski kau tak akan pernah tahu.

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(labeled fiction because it is a fiction)

*Inspired by a letter in the Thai drama "My Cherie Amour". In the letter, the main character wrote, "I'm not sure if you would want to spend your exciting and joyful life with such a boring person like me."

**Inspired by “One of the biggest tragedies in life is that you will always be loved more than you will ever know.”  – Alan Watts

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“Have you had a child?”

The question was asked lightly over lunchtime. It was not intrusive in tone and carried no bad intention. It was simply… normal. At my age, it is probably safe for people to assume that marriage and children have already become part of someone’s story. I have learned not to feel offended by it. It is, after all, a “socially acceptable” curiosity.

I smiled and shook my head. “Not yet,” I said, trying my best not to make this new friend of mine feel sorry for asking.

The expression that followed was familiar: a brief moment of surprise, quickly masked but not completely hidden. I sensed the confusion forming behind her eyes. I could almost see her rearranging the image she had unconsciously constructed of my life. And before she could ask another question, I felt compelled to fill the silence myself.

“I haven’t married yet,” I added.

The mood shifted immediately. The person in front of me began apologizing repeatedly, as if she had brought the wrong question to the serene break time. And strangely, that was the part that hurt. Not the question itself, but the realization that my situation made people feel the need to apologize to me. It was the second time in a month this had happened, and once again, I smiled and brushed it off, “It’s okay.”

The story does not end there. In another setting, another friend asked whether I would visit my family since we were already near my hometown. It was an innocent question. A kind one, even.

“I will not go home,” I replied.

Again, confusion. And somehow, without being asked, I felt the need to explain myself because silence would likely invite misunderstanding. I began to get used to explaining myself even when I hope I don’t have to.

“My parents passed away last year,”  I said carefully.

There is no easy way to say that sentence. No version that doesn’t rearrange the air between two people. No version that doesn't create instant discomfort in a conversation.

“In an accident,” I added, because the silence seemed to demand context.

The same expression appeared again: shock, followed by sympathy, followed by apologies. And that broke my heart, seeing people staring at me pitifully. Conversations that once flowed easily suddenly stopped, replaced by a silence.

****

These past few weeks, I have witnessed that same expression repeatedly. I noticed how people looked at me differently afterward. As if behind the cheerful and bubbly identity, they suddenly saw someone lonely, unfortunate, and pitiful.

When I was a child, my family struggled financially, and perhaps because of that, I sometimes felt ashamed of my circumstances. I promised myself early on that I would work hard so I could stand tall one day. Later, I wanted to carry myself with confidence, knowing the years of effort I had poured into building a life I could be proud of: education, work, discipline, growth. I have played the long game in many areas of my life. I have endured difficult seasons. I have earned my place at tables where I once felt small. And yet, now in the presence of certain questions, that confidence fades. I shrink, like someone who has worked so hard to climb in a game of snakes and ladders, only to land on a snake that sends her back to the beginning. As if returning to square one, I feel embarrassed by myself even when I know that essentially fate isn't something I could control: not back then, and not now.

When conversations revolve around spouses, children, and parents, I see the sparkle in my friends' eyes. I listen to stories about school festivals, family vacations, the chaos and warmth of domestic life. I am genuinely happy for them to celebrate their lives. But there is also a silent prayer that comes from insecurity in my heart: Please don’t ask me to share mine. A friend once noticed that I rarely talk about my family. I did not answer out loud to prevent myself from ruining the atmosphere, but inside I whispered: "I wish I could also tell stories….." then smiled like everything is alright. 

Unknowingly, I became an expert in navigating awkwardness that surfaces in social gatherings, in family-centered conversations, and within subtle cultural expectations. 

****

This afternoon, as I sat quietly watching the sunset in Yogyakarta, the sky turned into layers of orange and blue. As if time had frozen, the world did not rush me. It did not question me. It did not require explanation. And in that stillness, something shifted.

I realized that my life, while it may look sad from certain angles, is not a bad life. There is still warmth in siblinghood and friendships. There is still meaning in work. There is still laughter in ordinary days. And above all, there is still the chance to continue, with ease granted by Allah in ways I often fail to notice, and with hardships that perhaps exist to bring me closer to Him. I realized that He replaces what is taken with forms of strength I may not immediately recognize, and for that, I am grateful.

As the sun disappeared and the sky darkened, I felt a quiet acceptance settle in my chest. My story is not over. It may not resemble the story I once imagined. It may not fit neatly into conversations. It may require explanations more often than I would like. But it is still unfolding, and I fully trust Allah's decision.

Everything will eventually be okay. Everything will be okay, insyaAllah.

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(Yogyakarta, 10 February 2026)

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