le love | searching and sharing for beauty and love in the everyday life

11:38 PM

LIVE A LIFE FULL OF WONDER, MY DEAR.

10:47 AM

EMBRACING FEMININITY

"The feminine energy itself is undirected but immense,
like the wind and deep currents of the ocean,
ever changing,
beautiful, destructive, and the source of life."
- David Deida

I have been reading about feminism since I was in junior high school when I heard Emma Watson’s speech in the United Nation for HeForShe 2014 Campaign. Because I believe both men and women have their role for gender equality. Even though I don’t have the expertise to talk a lot about gender equality or feminism, but these topics have been intriguing for me. My younger self felt uncomfortable when women are seen as too bossy when she wants to lead, too aggressive when she wants to achieve, too muscle-y when she wants to do more in sport, on the other hand men are labelled too sensitive to expressed their feelings, too weak when men do domestic activity which society sees more of a “mother thing-y”. And on her speech, Emma, mentioned that more men should be invited to talk more about this gender equality as many as women do. And eight years from her speech, still, not more men engaged in this kind of topic. After marriage, my interest about ‘role of women’ expanded. I also would like to share a book I’ve read last year from Isabel Allende, a beautiful book titled The Soul of a Woman. That in a world where women might still be the second sex, that fact should not make women doubt their own value. One sentences that I cherish until today is that women have to love themselves a lot and love others without calculating how much we are love in return. That is how I embrace my femininity.

...

Embracing femininity. Celebrating myself as a daughter, as a wife, as a mother. As a daughter, I have the privilege where my parents didn’t love me less because I was born a daughter. So does my daughter, my husband and I love her so much, no difference if we had a son. My school also never limit me because I am a girl. My supervisors didn’t assume that I would go less far because I gave birth and have a child. My in laws are supportive for my education and career, as I can still be a woman who wants to pursue her dreams. I realize how as an individual I have changed. I am not a singular individual, but a plural individual. But we are all both singular and plural individual don’t you think? Both man and woman after marriage become a family that we couldn’t separate. Even since we were born son and daughter we are in a family that makes us a plural individual. Also, we are both member of a bigger society, so everything about oneself inter-relates. Then, when one agreed to be unity in a marriage, they could not separate themselves from others, their partners, their-to-be-children. After being a wife I understand the meaning of unconditional love, forgiveness and strength. In love there is forgiveness, in love there comes power. Love isn’t simply about two people meeting and their inward-looking relationship: it is a construction, a life that is being made, no longer from the perspective of one, but perspective of two. And here I am embracing femininity, as I believe femininity is about building, about supporting and about nurturing.

❤️

10:38 AM

A MOMENT OF EXTREME CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AND FINDING (LOVING) MYSELF AGAIN

"The time will come,
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving,
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself."
- Love after Love by Derek Walcott

Existential crisis is not just once-in-a-25-years-old-experience. It can happen many times, again, and again, later. Like a check point where you re-discover yourself. A site where you find yourself when you have been lost. A place to re-love yourself. A reminder to savor everything in life, no matter how mundane of familiar they have been. I forgot how to read. I used to be an avid reader. But these past one year, I could barely enjoy one book. I just could not finish a book as I used to. I even bought myself my own kindle. Maybe I will read more if I have an e-book reader but truth is… I don’t. Okay, I know, I am older now. The younger Dias has more time than the older Dias now. The younger Dias has more energy to read than the older Dias who finds spending time with her family and sleeping are more important than reading for leisure. And reading itself is a complex activity and I just could not concentrate myself as full as I was when I was younger. Perhaps the other reason also is that I haven’t found a good book to stick on to nonetheless the pile of my to-be-read books which I haven’t touch since I even could not remember. And now, I am on my journey to find what I love doing again. Maybe I won't have that time where I can read that much as I could, but at least I want to find myself doing what I once loved doing again. I want to have that good feeling when I read something that inspire me. I want to love myself who are so deeply involve in written words that I forget everything about the world. Even for just one sentence, I am starting to read again.

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And I fail to recall how to write on blog. Daily journaling, writing my feelings, memorizing specific experience into letters, celebrating even the most monotonous activity in my life. Because, the most ordinary experience in life are utterly extraordinary. Sometimes, or most of the times I'd say, is about the quiet moments in life. Catching on to a secret that is hidden in plain sight all along. I am usually pretty good about my thoughts and feelings. A piece of paper, a pen, a cup of coffee and a sad song. That was how I used to enjoy myself. So, where did my old self go? Why I couldn’t find her anymore? Why I missed her so much? I thought I have my life figured out. But truth to be told, no one ever had their life figured out. We are all in a race to a destination most of us not know whereof. There will always be time when we are lost. There will always be a moment where we are in the middle of an extreme crisis out of nowhere. There will always be a moment of pause where we look back just to see how far we have gone and if we’ve gone wrong, how far we’ve lose track. Or a moment to weep on how far we have been so strong to walk this far. How deeply the world and the people could wound you, you just need a moment to cry just to be ready to smile and walk again. No matter how broken your heart was, you just need a moment to stay still and have a little peek in the faith inside of you. Just a moment to look inside yourself again to find that greatest form of love, self-love, again to remember how to value your own self. It is indeed an endless endeavor. An exercise on a daily basis to make it consistent. And after all, learning to love others begins with learning to love ourselves. And once we realize our value, we know how we must be loved and respected by others, too. You may be weaker than the whole world, but you are always stronger than yourself. I am in the state of not being okay, broken-hearted. I guess I will be better eventually.

❤️

9:31 AM

TRUE LOVE IS NOT MAGIC: NOTES ABOUT MARRIAGE

Marriage is not "I promise to love you until I stop loving you"
it's "I promise to make conscious decision to continue to love you,
to continue to choose you,
to choose us even when things turn hard,
because I'm aware that no one is perfect,
but you are worth it."

We celebrated our 3 years of marriage this April, total of 5 years being together. Our time together is filled with joy that I couldn't fathom into words. But something that is too good to be true, needs a gut-punching event once in awhile. To keep our eyes wide open, to keep our feet on the ground. To keep us closest to reality. And that is how we understand about being human, even with the pain it made us feel. That know we understand, marriage is ‘heartbreak-and-hurt’, and at the same time also ‘growth and self-discovery’. It is flawed and we both learned from the crack. And no marriage is perfect, and it shouldn't be. Loving somebody is not perfection and good times and laughing and making love, but love is forgiveness and patience and faith. And you have to be with someone that deserve your faith and you have be deserving of someone else's, too. It is sacred. I don't marry just to wake up next to you everyday. But I marry you because I know marriage is hard, blending two families is hard, raising kids is hard, paying bills is hard, doing our jobs everyday is hard, life is hard, and you are the person I want to go through it with. I don't marry you because we are cute together (yes of course we are), but I marry you because this is a long work with a never-ending-ups-and-downs, and with you... is worth every second of it. To experience this kind of bond, to be loved, to be seen, to be understood and to be chosen this deeply, I'm beyond grateful, thank you. Well, I never seen forever, but I know we will remain. And true love is, indeed, not magic, my dear. We fall in love in just a second, but to prove that love, it's a lifetime endeavor. And if they said people will have 2-3 committed relationship for the rest of their lives, I wish it will be you and me again and again, marry and re-marry again for a lifetime. Because, I don't want anyone else if it is not you.

❤️

le love | searching and sharing for beauty and love in the everyday life

POSTCARDS FROM AMED

LIVE A LIFE FULL OF WONDER, MY DEAR.

EMBRACING FEMININITY

A MOMENT OF EXTREME CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE AND FINDING (LOVING) MYSELF AGAIN

TRUE LOVE IS NOT MAGIC: NOTES ABOUT MARRIAGE