Menolak Rejeki, You Said?

Juni 2015. 5 bulan lagi menjelang hari H.

“How’s the wedding preparation?”

“Mau honeymoon kemana?”

“Nanti abis nikah tinggal dimana?”

“Abis itu langsung punya anak?”

“Loh, kenapa ditunda-tunda? Ga baik loh menolak rejeki dari Tuhan?”

Urutan pertanyaan yang belakangan ini sering banget gue terima. Mulai dari yang normal sampai yang paling nyebelin, judgemental, dan sok ngatur. It is not that I do not like it when people care about me. But some people need to know the boundaries.

I do believe people have their own standards, their own values, and their own plan. I will roll with my plans, and so do you with your plans.

Our community used to think that it’s okay for them to intervene other people’s plans for the sake of “Maksud gue kan baik”, “Kami mau yang terbaik untuk kamu”, and so the list goes. But trust me people, your own standard of happiness do not always apply the same on other people. Someone can happily live his/her newly wed life in a small apartment rent in the center of Jakarta with the crazy traffic jam everyday, while some people live happily in the countryside, or some people need to travel around the world and go wanderlusting to find their happiness. See? It’s different, right?

And so with my plans. Trust me, my standard of “Live life happily ever after” with my husband to be could be very different with yours. Your plans might be: have a spectacular and elegant wedding party, go to EU for your honeymoon, three months after that you find out that you are pregnant (horray, congratulations!), breeding without calculating how are you going to feed them well  and yeah, whatever your plan is. 

But my fiance and I, we want to go to some places, certain beautiful places, which maybe you find it not beautiful at all. We want to do this and that, which i think it is not that important to share it here (trust me you don’t wanna know what’s the list). To make those plans come true, I need to manage many things. Including my breeding schedule.

Thank God, I have supportive parents who understand that me n my fiance want to do certain things before we finally have to settle down, lowering our pace, and preparing the newly born baby and all it’s fuss. Mom said, “Yang nanti akan bangun jam 2 pagi buat menyusui dan ganti popok itu kamu, bukan mami,” and, “Yang nanti harus beliin susu, ngasih makan, dan menyekolahkan itu kamu.”

So, ya, my mom understand it very well, that I am not ready enough to be a mother. That’s not my ultimate life goal. And if I am not ready yet, it is fine. Because you know, having a child is more than that. It is more than ‘rejeki dari Tuhan’, ‘bukti cinta’, ‘meneruskan keturunan’. Human and their narcissistic behaviour. 

Henry Manampiring, my favorite Om from #OmOmUnite, the writer of “Cinta Tidak Harus Mati”, said this, “Adakah yang dirugikan jika kamu tidak mau punya anak? Justru punya anak itu egois, karena memaksa seorang manusia untuk hadir di dunia ini padahal dia tidak memintanya. Apa enaknya sih lahir di dunia kejam dan tidak fair ini? Sekali lagi, seorang anak lahir di dunia karena ambisi orangtuanya, bukan atas permintaannya sendiri.”

He added, “Kalau kamu tidak bahagia dengan menikah atau punya anak, jangan dipaksakan hanya untuk memenuhi ekspektasi orang lain. Menikah dan punya anaklah karena kamu merasa siap dan merasa sukacita melakukannya.”

So, people, i would like to say thank you for your concern, but... really, tidak usah memaksakan cara pandang kamu mengenai kehidupan, pernikahan, bla bla bla ke semua orang, as if itu yang paling benar. We have different way.