From Where I Stand

I was only hearing the voices from where I stand when suddenly the inspiration came and suck me into their monochromatic black hole – a futuristic thought from myself – about what would my mind say due to this saddest part of life. It was from where I stand when those voices are still the same old voices of my friends who took turns saying whatever they needed to say – but I was about as busy with my mind as their sayings.

It wasn’t my usual thing to do to actually tune out of conversation, but this time I really can’t help it. The thoughts kept bothering me. And here’s where my thoughts started…

This is the classroom in which I stand for the last 2 years. Every 5 days in a week for the last 730 days I've confronted my inner unwillingness to keep going – at the least to even just crawl to the way out of bed and go – and I can’t believe that I’m stepping out of it right now. I've gained so much from this place – both from the room and the people who filled my life with theirs. This time, when I stand at the door of my classroom for the last time, I suddenly feel a deeper sadness I’ve never realize I felt. Nothing caused more sadness than a silent room that once ever been so comforting in its loundness.

I won’t ever stay longer than 8 hours a day after I leave it today. I won’t ever have what friends I used to have in here – at least not as young as they were yesterday. I won’t escape home with as much as 17 other people surrounding me at a time. I won’t ever be able to exchange smile and worries with the same people again. I used to want to leave as fast as I came but all I want to do today is stay. I don’t want to leave this room and everything that’s once been inside. I don’t want to depart from what comfort high school had offered me. I don’t want to let go of those familiar voices and beings. But how can I not go when everyone else is going too?

Oh God, how I wish I didn’t have to grow up this fast.

…

This is a story from where I stand, about a room once a refuge to 18 souls.

Here is the place of refuge when home doesn’t feel comfortable.

Here is the reason we woke up everyday, to fight for at least 8 hours of life.

Here is the place we encountered ourselves and humbly give up for others.

Here is the place where souls change themselves into a better person.

Here, we proof that we are not only a group of kids to win over our own ego, but 18 heads representing a body.

And here, in this classroom, we spent the best year of our life.

We all came in our insecurities, fears, scars, and layers unknown to each other. But that's what made us beautiful - those scars that accompany us along the way for others to learn. And boy am I not more glad that our Principal realized that the 'harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph' for the harder it took to separate us from our freshman friends, the better family we are about to get in sophomore.

We may not know what we ought to find a few years from now in our friends. But today, a trip down the memory lane made me remember all the way down my spine that for once, this room in which I stand is not only about knowledge – but also life.

I snapped back as soon as another friend continue on her short speech. And it’s funny how I still catch the phrase before her next sentence as my thoughts go by. She said, “Gue sadar gue harus melanjutkan apa yang harus gue selesaikan; dan ternyata sekarang gue nemuin keluarga yang nempel dihati gue ini”.

What’s left of us may have only been the memory. But from where I stand, I know that this is simply our comfort zone - our family. –red