Is it Me?

I went to tennis practice on Monday and only got 5 minute-rally from the coach. Yep, I was late… VERY late. The session began at half past three, and I got there at half past five. Thirty minutes before it’s over. I was a little bit pissed, knowing that I need to work on my serve but I don’t have time to do so.

I told my coach, though, that I wanted to work on my serve, but he said there wasn’t enough time, and that I should be playing.

If I’m in court, practising, I’m a totally different person. There’s no such thing as energetic me. I’m calm. I never talk to anyone else beside the coach. The only thing I’ve said to the other student is "sorry" because my serve was crap. Sometimes I’d hit an ace or two, but that rarely happen.

Anyway, back to the problem. So, I was partnered with this guy. I don’t know what is it with him, but he acts like he doesn’t want to play. I think everybody knows that my serve is totally falling apart. This guy makes it worse.

The whole time (before actually quitting the match because my knee was injured when I played futsal, and it still hurts), I kept thinking what a j*** he’s been. later I heard from the other coach that he’s a cranky person. That only made me want to choke him more than ever.

After I got home, I was furious. He hates playing doubles, but is that the way to treat a person? When I was serving he would just sit in the middle of the court. Although I have a lot to work on my serve, I feel humiliated. Had I been an angry person I’d yell at him right then and there. But I didn’t do it.

All I’m saying is that what he’d done, it’s not the way to treat a person. You make the other person feel humiliated in front of a number of people, that’s not cool.

A Numb Heart

I was quite shocked by what I felt last Monday. I have never felt like that before, not in my entire life. To be honest I was horrified. To me, in a way, I have the heart of a cold-blodded killer.

I had a tennis course last Monday. After a usual rally and practice, me and some ohter kids played games. Embarrassingly, I lost the first set, 4-2. Embarrassing because the kids who beat me couldn’t be more than 12 years old.

It was not until the second set that I felt that something’s wrong. After my doubles partner served (and it went wide), I suddenly felt NOTHING. And I meant, nothing. Win or lose, I don’t care. But my mind quickly caught the problem, and I thought, "What is this? I felt nothing, what’s going on?"

I thought about it all night. Even when I was at my friend’s birthday party I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What was that?

What I felt is very hard to describe. In a way, I felt peaceful. I knew right away that nothing would make me mad or cry. I was like a rock. But at the same time I was worried. All this time, I couldn’t figure out how someone can turn into a whole different person, and would have the gut to kill someone. When that feeling came, suddenly I was aware, and I answered my own question. Something happened, and your heart went numb. Whatever you do at that time, you wouldn’t feel anything inside. Scary, to me, knowing that I may have the heart of a killer. Somehow I thought that I have the potential doing something really bad, and not feeling guilty about it. If anyone askes me why, I would simply answer, "I don’t feel anything. I can’t feel anything."

Everyone has a dark side. And maybe that’s mine.

Interview

Q : How do you feel right now?

A : I’m a little bit better. More… relaxed than yesterday.

Q : What made you so panic last night?

A : I dunno, for sure. But I think it has something to do with the ‘growing up’ fact.

Q : What do you mean?

A : Well, I just realized that I’m growing up. Fast. I mean, I realized it when I got my ID card, like, I’m a grown up now, but… I never realized that it would feel like this.

Q : How does it feel?

A : Heavy? I dunno, I don’t know how to put it into words, it’s just… I feel different. Like, more responsible, and it’s… I feel like I have a huge rock on both my shoulders. My heart is full with this unpleasant emotion that I can’t get rid of, and it has been haunting me since forever, but it went away for some time, and now it’s back.

Q : How did you get rid of the emotion?

A : I’ve been living with it for a long time, and it just went away at a certain point in my life. So, I really have no idea. Now it’s back, and I don’t know how to make it go away. I can only hope for it to vanish, sometime later on.

Q : You made it this far, emotions aside, and everything. How do you think it would go? I mean, do you think you have to do something special to get rid of them?

A : I don’t think so. I think… and this has just popped out from my brain… I think I went through it by not thinking too far ahead. You know, by just… living my life and facing my problems and not focusing too much on my future.

Q : Are you saying you don’t want to think about your future?

A : Right now, yeah. I realized that… where the panic came from, it was because I was busy thinking too far ahead. And I think as a person, the possibilities that you can think of are the worst ones, you know? Specially from someone like me, my whole life I have been preparing for the worst that could happen to me, by thinking about it, and I think, somehow, it affects me, and I think I made myself to be a paranoid.

Q : Does it bother you, the paranoia?

A : Oh, yeah! I mean, at some point I thought of myself as a slight schizophrenic, because of the constant thoughts that I have. I have so many bad what ifs and if it does come true sometime in the future, I would blame myself a little bit. Because I was lead to believe that I triggered what happened, just by thinking about it, although it happened thousands of miles away from where I am.

Q : Do you think you’ve handled it well enough?

A : Nope. I don’t think so. There are times when I could control my mind, but there are times when the voices in my head becomes unbearable for me, and I ended up carrying it to my sleep, hoping that it would go away. And sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. When the voices becomes ‘wild’, so to speak, I would write or I would talk to myself, silently, like I would figure out what’s going on, and how to handle it. I’m a very introvert person, and I’ve always tried to analyze everything that has happened to me by myself.

Q : What makes you an introvert person?

A : My fear, I would say. I have friends, I have parents, I have my family, but I don’t open up to them. I mean, I would, but only at a certain level. When… I feel like the problems are too personal for me, and what I thought would ‘destroy’ my image in front of all those people, I would try as hard as I could to resolve the matter by myself.

Q : What if you can’t solve the problem alone?

A : Then I would go through every single day with that problem eating my heart. I know it’s crazy but I don’t want people to think of me as a freak, after they heard my problems. I rarely show my emotions, you know, how I feel inside, because I’m afraid that people might think of me as a weirdo. But I got through my day, anyway, and I end it up by praying and surrender myself to God.

Q : Does it help, praying?

A : If you’re praying and you hope for an answer instantly, it’s never going to happen. It takes time… a long one, in fact. It helps me to ‘relax’ a little bit, you know, coz it helps me realize that no matter what kind of problems I’m facing, it happened to me for a reason.

What a day!!!

My life is ‘revolving’ around tennis, so you’ll have to forgive me because this entry is once again about tennis.

My favourite tennis player moved through to the 4th round against Russia’s A. Myskina on Sunday, June 4th, 2006. The match was held at 5 PM Paris time, which means 10 PM Jakarta time. I was nervous as hell.

When she was against Kutznetsova (again, from Russia) in German Open, I, too, was nervous. I kept thinking that maybe she’s not going to make it through, but there’s still a part of me that says that she’s going to pull through, and I was still in control of my emotions. This time, I was going bonkers.

I went to sleep at 11 PM, an hour after the match had begun. There’s no TV coverage which made me even more furious. Of all the sports, I think it’s better to air Grand Slams better than TNA Wrestling (which is so fake. The only real thing about the sport is the wrestlers’ muscles), right? I hate TNA. I was watching it briefly and on the interview, one of the wrestlers said that he better work in some gross store than to hear Canada’s anthem again. I thought, "Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding!!!" I mean, it’s one thing for you to insult someone, it’s another thing to insult a country. He’s such a jerk.

Anyway….. I ended up waking up at 12 AM from my radio, which was still on. I thought it was already 5 AM. But apparently I was wrong, and I decided to sleep through. My heart beats so fast during my time on my bed, all the time. I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself down, but nothing worked. Literally, it was like waiting for your wife who’s in labour. She’s the one doing it and you’re the one waiting nervously in the hospital lobby.

I woke up again at half past 6. As soon as I saw the time, I put on my glasses and ran to the dining room, coz that’s where the servants usually put the newspapers. I turned the newspapers backwards and opened the sports page. I found out about Rafael Nadal who was choking from banana during a match, and about Sharapova’s surprising lost to Safina, when she was up 5-1. But nothing about my tennis player. Not even the final score. I was going nuts.

I watched "Just Shoot Me’" and somehow it calmed my nerves a little bit. After my parents are gone, I ran upstairs to my computer and surf-ed the internet. I went to her website, and… SHE WON!!!!! Straight sets, 6-1, 6-4. I cried silently and rubbed my face. Finally… I felt like the world’s burden was lifted from my shoulders. I tell you, I’ve never felt like that before. Not even when they announced that I didn’t get accepted in my old school.

I know for a fact that she doesn’t know me. Maybe she read one of my guestbook entry once, but I doubt it. And it’s strange how I can be so nervous, when it’s about her, and not about me. But when you’re a fan… I guess there’s an excuse .

A Funny Philosophy about Holiday

Akhirnya, setelah beberapa entry dibikin dalem bahasa Inggris, gue mutusin buat kembali nulis dalem bahasa ibu gue, bahasa Indonesia.

Liburan udah dateng. Senen ini gue resmi menjadi ’salah seorang dari sekian banyak anak sekolah yang libur’. Lama banget, lebih dari sebulan, meskipun liburnya masih diselingin kegiatan kayak class meeting, tapi what the hell, right? Yang penting udah gak belajar, at least for a while. Yang paling gue takutin adalah gimana kalo ternyata ranking gue (yang sebenernya gue gak perduli, tapi buat bokap gue itu bagaikan seonggok emas) turun? Gimana kalo dari nomer 17 (duh, malu) jadi nomer 20? Amit-amit deh! Satu-satunya alesan kenapa gue peduli soal ranking ini adalah gue takut ngecewain ortu lagi, setelah ngecewain sekian banyak kali. Gue tau gue udah usaha, tapi gimana kalo ternyata belom cukup di mata mereka?

Anyway, alesan gue nulis ini bukan gara-gara komplain soal ranking, tapi karena beberapa taon belakangan, I have a funny philosophy about holiday.

Kebanyakan dari kita gak sabar nunggu waktu liburan, apalagi di minggu-minggu supersibuk buat mahasiswa atopun pelajar, yaitu minggu tugas n ulangan. Rasanya kalo besokannya libur, duh… senengnya minta ampun. Tapi, waktu libur itu akhirnya dateng juga, kebanyakan (dari hasil survei gue nanyain anak-anak sekelas) ngabisin waktu liburannya dengan ngegelayutan dari mall ke mall. Mending kalo dari mall ke mall, ada yang malah cuman di rumah terus.

Ini adalah filosofi-nya : bahwa waktu libur itu dateng, kita ngerasa itu lama banget gak selesai-selesai. Sedangkan waktu liburan itu emang udah mau selesai, rasanya kita gak mau masa-masa bangun siang n nomat sepuasnya itu berakhir. Di saat-saat terakhir itulah, kayaknya, "Duh, cepet amat, sih!!

Lucu, buat gue… Paling nggak tiap liburan, itulah yang gue rasakan.