No One Can Tell You How to Feel and No One Can Tell You How to Feel
Please read the title once more.
If I were to reflect on this enormous life from a small perspective of my world, there are two major turning points in my life: my study abroad journey and my romantic relationship not-so-shenanigans. Both have always been the thing I hyperfixate in life for certain purposes and personal reasons. By hyperfixating, it means that I have careful expectations, I have dreams I want to achieve through them, and my life values are gambled on the line with them.
Some time ago, I was blessed enough to achieve both of them in the same year. My never-ending aspiration to escape from the Indonesian education system was finally granted, and my idea of love was no longer just an idea, there was a real person I could look into the eye. And achieving your dreams might feel greater than any emotion you ever felt or could ever imagine, trust me. It transforms you to a whole different person. There will be things that make you think, “I never knew this could happen,” or, “I never knew I’m capable of this,” be it love, academic or professional accomplishments, spiritual awakening, anything.
Until you realize that dream is just a momentum. Soon after, you will realize that dream is also a life that you have to live. It’s not the finish line. And as the cliche saying, life is full of ups and downs.
The thing about achieving your dream, though, people will congratulate you. But, what’s not mentioned more often is people will think you live a perfect life, more than your own expectation of perfect.
On my first few months being in Japan, everyone was assuming how exciting it must be to be in a new place, to experience snow for the first time, to live in an environment with better public regulation and basic needs, etc. And while all of them was true, the people who don’t have first-hand access to your life would never be able to comprehend the complex feeling of welcoming a completely new thing — almost alien — at the same time, the struggle behind leaving everything that was once your identity, if not at least has been attached to you for so many years. To an extent, even the people who have first-hand access to your whole “new experiences” or “achieved dreams” won’t be able to understand how you feel because everyone is occupied with different upbringings, aspirations, and expectations of life.
The same thing happened when I quit my romantic relationship. One thing I still think about up to this day is, “everyone talks about being in a relationship but no one ever prepared you for a breakup.” If anyone does, it’s to just move on. Despite it being the right thing to do, the burden of carrying disappointments and trying to find hope in the ruins is more than difficult to bear alone. No one will ever carry it for you and no one will ever teach you how. The friends who help you get through a break up? They’re there just to give you company, they can never figure out how you should move on. But, as if the personal burden wasn’t enough, you’re imposed by societal pressure. “It’s been a year and you still talk about that person?” “Why are you always sad?” “That person doesn’t deserve you, you should feel proud for walking away.” Those sentences can be of help to some people, and be a disaster to some others.
Studying abroad and experiencing romantic connection are significant parts of my life not only for the extreme rollercoaster of emotion and ever-changing thought process that they bring out, but also because it’s a constant walking lecture even after months and years passed by. I keep learning new things from something that is no longer going on in my life and I keep getting insights about things I never thought would be important to take notes or be considerate enough to keep it in mind.
This led me to one conclusion: no one can tell you how to feel. People come from different backgrounds, have different values and what they think of as important. Don’t let them dictate how you should feel, because they’re not the one feeling your emotion, they’re not the one undergoing the fluctuations in your life. But, at the same time, no one can actually tell you how to feel. Looking back at my story, I didn’t even know what I would feel after breaking up, or while studying abroad. I won’t be able to know how you would feel after getting a bad result for exam, or when you get the job you always wanted. Both me and you don’t even know what to feel this next second. So, why would we tell other people how to feel? Even if we would, can we? Can we figure out other people’s emotion for them?
Please read the title once more.
