Little Stories 331: Between Books and Boxes

Books, series & movies:  

Seven completely different voices, seven different ways of seeing the world:

• The Wilderness by Ayşegül Savaş : New motherhood, Turkish writer, quiet literary fiction
• Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro : Murder mystery, disability, Argentine writer
• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke : Religious extremism, psychological descent, moral ambiguity
• All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert : Self-discovery, personal essays, reflective memoir
• I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman : Dystopian, feminist, existential
• You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat : Identity, queer desire, Palestinian-American writer
• The Idiot by Elif Batuman : Coming-of-age, campus novel, Turkish-American writer

I finally finished watching Season 1 of Dept. Q. Honestly, I started it for one reason and one reason only: Matthew Goode. Just wanted something nice to cuci mata while having lunch.

A few weeks before that, I also watched The Odyssey. It was the first film that really stayed with me after Project Hail Mary. I don't think I have anything particularly original to add because social media has already dissected every frame and every theory. What I can say is that I loved it.

To me, the entire film felt like one long analogy for life. It was filled with metaphors that quietly unfolded as the story went on. There were several moments that made my eyes well up, not because the scenes were overtly emotional, but because I saw pieces of my own life reflected in them. The dialogue was beautiful, and the way it portrayed hardship, perseverance, and the strange weight of simply being alive reached somewhere deep inside me.

The only thing that bothered me was how the scenes jump from one scene to the other, the transition is a bit off. Itu kerja Nolan lah. 

-

The Moving:

August is the month of packing and moving.

After 2 years and 6 months of renting this apartment in SK, it's finally time to move out. I had already extended my stay by six months without renewing the contract, but now the deadline is real. I have about four weeks to empty the apartment, fix whatever needs fixing, and hand it back. 

I started packing my books. That alone filled 10 medium-sized boxes. I can't even lift a single one because they're so heavy. At this point, hiring professional movers isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. They're probably going to need heavy-duty trolleys just to deal with my ever-growing book collection :F

Right now, my workspace is complete chaos. Every corner is occupied by piles of things I'm trying to sort through, deciding what to keep, what to sell, what to donate, and what to throw away. It's exhausting, but there's something oddly satisfying about slowly untangling the life I've built here over the past two and a half years. It is already a bit overwhelming right now, that's why I started packing early, because I can't do last minute stuffs. 

Anyway, here is my carousell - I'm selling my stuffs because my space is small and I need to downsize. 

-

Mini-flood Incident:

Last weekend, the pipe at my kitchen sink suddenly burst and started spraying water everywhere. I had literally just woken up and was about to make breakfast for Sofi. My brain wasn't fully awake yet, so I just stood there going, "What should I do? What should I do?", you know that half-asleep, slightly slow state in the morning? Thankfully, I managed to turn off the main water supply under the sink. I stared at the soaked kitchen for a moment, thinking maybe I could fix it myself. I pushed the pipe back into place and it burst again.

At that point, I genuinely wanted to cry. I had been awake for less than an hour, I was hungry, my kitchen was flooded, and Sofi kept asking me a hundred questions because she had no idea what was happening. I felt completely overwhelmed. No one had a plumber's number, and, of course, it was a Sunday, so nobody was replying to my messages either.

Eventually, I gave up and decided to join the family lunch in Nilai, even though I had confidently declared that Sunday was supposed to be my "day off from society". After lunch, Sofi wasn't ready to go home because she wanted to jalan-jalan. Meanwhile, I had developed a headache and my back was killing me, so I surrendered. I found a café, sat down with a drink, and let Aja and Is entertain her around IOI while I quietly existed for a while. 

By then, Af was back from his odyssey, so last minute, I booked a massage session at 6pm. I had to release the knots that was killing my back, and the headache that was eating my rationale mind for the past 2 days. BUT, Sofi was not ready to let me go, so she refused to stay with Af and they had to wait until my session was over =.=

After that, Af decided to help me buy a replacement pipe, grabbed the biggest bottle of mineral water for the apartment, and carried everything upstairs because, let's be honest, I wasn't going to win that battle. That, right there, is my problem. Whenever something unexpected happens, I get completely overwhelmed. It's like my brain just shuts down and can't make a decision. I need a moment of quiet to process what's happening before I can think clearly and figure out a solution. Being forced to improvise on the spot has never been my strength. And I hate that.

Not because I can't solve problems, I usually do. It's my brain's delay that annoys me. 

My brain needs time to process before it starts working again, and I wish I could skip that part.

Anyway, thankiu Af - because he just knows. 

I'll do better next time.

*

What's interesting today: I was talking to AR about how I respond in a crisis, and she said something along the lines of, "That sounds like your nervous system is getting overwhelmed. Maybe therapy would help." The more I thought about it, the more it made sense; not as a diagnosis, but as an explanation worth exploring. Whenever I get nervous, anxious, or caught completely off guard, it feels like my brain briefly goes offline. I don't become irrational; I just lose access to clear thinking for a while. Once I've had a bit of time to process everything, I can usually figure things out. 

Weirdly wired. 

Little Stories 330: Quiet Trust

I survived the Sabah trip, four cohorts (behind the scene), 200 pages of PDFs, Sports Day, and organizing a birthday party—all in three weeks.

Every single overwhelming instance was noted and considered. I knew I would be okay. I don't spiral into anxiety anymore. I let myself feel fear and insecurity, as I should. I make myself heard by letting myself feel. But these days, I know how to regulate my own emotions. I know when I have to face my demons, and I know when to let go.

So I am fine.

Even when I am not fine, I know I will be fine. 

That's the difference; I now have that quiet trust to find my way back to myself.

-

Mini story:

Sofi got water beads as her present.

They were playing in the new Kuromi tent when all 2,400 pieces of beads fell and scattered all over the tent. She panicked, it was an accident. I know well that she wouldn't like her beads mixed together, and 2,400 pieces in 24 colours are a lot to separate alone. They tried to scoop them out, they tried to pick them one by one.

"How, Mami? How, Mami? Please, I don't want to do it alone." 

- waktu ni ateeya nak lari dah, ngelat.

I gave her a mini broom, a dustpan, and a small container.

I asked them to put everything into the container.

When everything was in the container, we would find the time to separate them back into their colours.

We'd do it when we had the time and energy, slowly.

When we wanted to separate them, we'd pick the obvious colours first because they were easy to spot.

The almost identical colours would come later, after the other colours were done.

I told her later while we were separating them together, "This container is like all your problems. Instead of letting them scatter everywhere, you put them into one container. Then you need a strategy. Pick the ones that are easy to solve first. Do it slowly and patiently. Then move on to the next problem. If you're tired, you can continue another time. Okay?" - you know I love to use analogy and metaphor, kahkah.

So, we've been separating the 2,400 water beads since Sunday.

And it is almost done.

Happy 7th birthday, bb.

-

Little Thing 347: The Cost of Self-Regulation

I got back from a family trip.

Before the trip, I decided to be as flexible and positive as I could manage. I had one intention in mind: to see, firsthand, whether I could regulate my emotions through all the little frictions that inevitably come with travelling as a family. It was a four-day trip, and in my mind, those were four experimental days. And I did surprisingly well.

Interestingly, the real challenge came after the trip. One by one, small frustrations appeared before I had the chance to rest, process everything that had happened, or refill my now-empty cup. During those moments, I snapped at Sofi twice. I was exhausted, impatient, unable to deal with one more drama, and completely overwhelmed.

So yes, I did well during the trip, but I somewhat failed after it.

It made me wonder: Had I actually become better at regulating my emotions? Or did I only succeed because I knew I was running an experiment with a clear beginning and end? And when real life returned; all messy, unpredictable, with no finish line—did I simply fall apart?

Then I realized something.

Self-regulation isn't free. For four days, I consciously chose patience over instinct. I stayed self-aware. I chose the better version of myself, again and again. Every one of those moments required intention. Every one of them cost energy.

If someone runs a marathon and can't climb the stairs afterward, we don't conclude they were never fit. We conclude that the marathon cost them something. Mental effort works much the same way. It reminded me that recovery is part of self-regulation, not separate from it.

I still finished the run.

I just need to recover, and work on the next run. 

Little Thing 346: Thousand Little Deaths

Ada hari kita rasa macam tengah mati. Sakitnya dalam hati tu terasa macam ada tangan yang tengah menggenggam jantung kita kuat-kuat. Terlalu fizikal. Sampai kita susah nak percaya yang semua ni "cuma" perasaan, yang datang daripada subconscious kita.

Tapi itulah realitinya menjadi manusia.

I die a little every day, and somehow, I wake up again tomorrow for another chance at life.

Sampailah ajal benar-benar tiba, but in the meantime, you'll die thousand little deaths. 

And what remains is who you become.

*

Little Thing 345: Relearning Connection

I think I've been postponing the part where I need to make new connections for quite a while now. Every quarter during our team's check-ins, we share one commitment for our personal growth. Mine is almost always the same: I want to build more meaningful connections. And almost every quarter, I have to admit that I didn't really do much about it. For years now, I've been a hermit by choice.

But I think I've run out of excuses. So I've decided to treat socializing the same way I approach learning any other skill: intentionally, with small experiments. Lately, I've been trying uncomfortable things simply out of curiosity, almost like watching myself in a self-experiment to see how I react and what I learn from it. Mostly in controlled settings, where I still feel somewhat in control.

The funny thing is, I've become so comfortable with solitude that I forgot how much practice conversation actually takes. I don't like feeling anxious around new people. I don't want to lose the ability to have thoughtful conversations just because I stopped having them.

So I've been giving myself small, ongoing challenges.

• Meeting an old friend again for playdates with our daughters.

• Asking my boss out for coffee, with one rule: no talking about work.

• Downloading a dating app, mostly to see if I'd stumble across someone worth having an intellectual conversation with.

• Applying for volunteer work.

• Running a mini sharing session with our interns.

• Babysitting my neighbour's daughter so she and Sofi can play together.

If I'm being completely honest, I'd still rather spend an uninterrupted afternoon at home with a good book. But I've also started putting conversations on my calendar. Because one thing I've quietly missed in adulthood is having adult conversations.

There are still more things I can to try:

• Going to events as participants

• Coffee meetups with strangers.

• Public reading sessions.

• More sharing sessions with like-minded people

Like I shared on Ig after downloading the dating app, I'm probably too serious for casual dating, too cynical for surface-level conversations, and maybe a little too lazy to build new relationships. None of that is particularly helpful if the goal is to socialize.

But I also know how much I've changed since joining my current team. Before this, I worked mostly alone as a freelancer. Having people around challenged me in ways I didn't know I needed. I refuse to make myself small again. Maybe that's all this is, another skill. And like every other skill, it gets better with practice.

Please don't offend me with saying that "You are lonely", you have no idea how much fun I had being by myself all these time and not having to deal with human drama - it is so peaceful. But I've simply realized that meaningful human connection deserves to be part of the life I'm trying to build. I'm doing this for Sofi, she needs bigger reliable circle in her life. 

So again, I will try to make an effort.

Little Stories 329: Playing the Card

Sofi and I were both sick last week. She got it first. Sofi vomited almost 10 times within the span of 8 hours and developed diarrhea once she started medication. She was weak, feverish, nauseous, and close to dehydration. She stayed home for the entire week.

48 hours after Sofi's first episode, I fell sick too. I woke up after midnight, sweating, sitting at the edge of the mattress, trying to make it to the toilet, waiting for something that felt like it was making its way out of my body. Then came the vile vomiting. I was too weak, I couldn't even stand up afterwards.

I had to call for reinforcements. I texted my siblings' WA group and asked for help. My brother came and took care of me throughout the night. The next morning, Af took Sofi so I could rest. I slept and slept the whole day. I couldn't keep my eyes open. The fatigue had taken over my entire body. My muscles ached, I was feverish, and my stomach cramped. In the afternoon, my sister came with chicken soup and took care of me. I slept again. They all took their turn T^T

Af brought us to the clinic the next day. It was probably stomach flu. We went back to Ma's after I got an MC for the day. I asked my sister to drive us because I was still too weak. Being at Ma's meant I had support if I needed it. We stayed there until the weekend.

-

I asked for help from my village because I knew, then, when to ask for help.

Being a single mother means knowing when to play "the card" and having the courage to ask for help, knowing full well that nobody owes you a rescue. Sometimes you'll be reminded that you are not important enough to someone. Sometimes people will drop everything and sit beside you through it all. 

And that, perhaps, is a lesson worth reflecting on.

Note: To those who slept next to me through my half-conscious dramatic episode, I put you in my special box in my heart ❤︎⁠ 

Little Stories 328: Still Singing Along

It goes back more than twenty years, to a time when I listened to their songs on my MP3 player on repeat while walking to kuliah.

The internet was still a luxury then. If I wanted to go online, I had to queue for a computer at the campus computer centre or the library and wait for my turn. New music was not something I could summon instantly with a tap of a screen. I only got to refresh my playlist when I went home and asked my then "friend" to help me hunt down songs on LimeWire.

Then I entered Uniten and became an IT student, so the internet became the norm. I had access to the world, and I also had a relationship with an Indonesian boy who helped me explore more of that realm (not sure whether it was official; we would probably call it a situationship these days). So my love for Indonesian bands grew during my university years, much to the confusion of my siblings. They felt it did not suit my personality. Then again, a lot of my playlist probably does not match people's perception of me. But I do speak in music, and I love the beauty of words in songs.

So, a lot of my young adult life was accompanied by their songs. 

They were there through various phases: situationships, drama, heartbreak, yearning, and love. This was "personal", personal.

When I saw the poster for the concert, I shared it with my sister immediately. I had to go this time; I missed the last one. We bought the tickets early and I waited for months. Last weekend, we spent four hours there, being entertained by these middle-aged men, way past my normal bedtime. I was excited, to say the least. I'm still not sure whether it was right to drag my sister along. She had gone to the previous concert and was not nearly as excited as I was, but she came along anyway. Kesian kot.

And it made me wonder: if I went to a concert alone, how would I feel?

I'm dragging my other sister to see another concert later end of year. I imagine myself sitting there alone, enjoying the music without worrying whether anyone else is having a good time. Maybe I would enjoy it being by myself in a crowd. Maybe then I would not have to drag anyone along anymore. Maybe it would be my thing. 

Like the running, you know. 

Little Thing 344: Who Would I Tell?

I read a good book recently. It came to me by surprise, and I knew nothing about it going in. Some people have said it reminds them of Piranesi, but I disagree. It never made me feel as suffocated as Piranesi did. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman is a 1995 sci-fi dystopian novel:

It follows thirty-nine adult women and a young, unnamed narrator who have no memory of their past and are kept imprisoned in an underground cage by silent male guards. When the guards suddenly abandon them, the women escape into a desolate, lifeless world. From there, the novel shifts into an existential exploration of isolation, freedom, and what it means to be human, as the women—and eventually only the narrator—try to survive in this barren wasteland.

Not as sprawling or messy as Dostoevsky, this book gave me the same feeling as The Road by Cormac McCarthy or Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It quietly dismantles your assumptions and leaves you staring at the ceiling, wondering what remains when everything else has been stripped away.

It made me question my existence on a Saturday afternoon, which is perhaps the highest compliment I can give a book. I am still thinking about it days later. 

If I can no longer share anything with anyone, what is the point of my existence?

I have always taken pride in my ability to embrace solitude. Over time, I have accepted that my difficulty in connecting with others is simply part of how I am wired. But the book left me wondering: if there were no one to share my thoughts with, through conversation, writing, art, or any other medium, would those thoughts still matter?

Would a poem still be a poem if no one ever read it? Would a story still have meaning if it remained untold? Would love, grief, joy, or curiosity carry the same weight if they existed only within the boundaries of a single mind?

Part of me wants to believe that meaning can exist independently, that a life can be worthwhile simply because it is lived. Yet another part wonders whether meaning is something we create together, whether our thoughts become real only when they are witnessed, received, or echoed back by another person.

Perhaps that is what unsettled me most about this novel. It is not merely about isolation. It asks what remains of our humanity when there is no audience, no community, and no one left to remember us. And whether meaning is something we possess, or something we give to one another.

-

As someone who has spent most of her life writing, I found myself carrying that question long after I finished the book. We often say that we write for ourselves, but do we really? If there is no reader, no witness, no possibility of being understood, does the act still hold the same meaning?

When I write, who am I writing to?

Tu lah, writers are funny in that sense, we call it solitude bagai, then spend hundreds of pages trying to reach someone. Kemooon sisterr. 

Little Thing 343: The Things We Endure

Last night before bed, Sofi asked me to massage her legs.

“Mami, today I sakit kaki. But I tahan. I did not cry.”

Yesterday, we spent four hours at Kiddytopia. She played the entire time. Afterwards, we went for lunch and bought groceries. Before we went, she had promised me she would not throw a tantrum from being too tired. I told her, “Remember that we are going to have fun today, ok?”.

The day before had been difficult. She had spent hours at the playground near our house in the evening after swimming earlier that morning. Maybe she was also overwhelmed from being in kampung for almost a week. That night, she cried and complained that her legs hurt so much from all the activities. She refused dinner, refused everything, and only wanted to sleep.

So when she said she wanted to go to Kiddytopia the next day, I was surprised. I thought she would want to stay home and recharge. But we went anyway, because she was being so nice about not wanting to ask me for anything. 

But 4 hours. 

She endured the pain and did not complain because she had promised she wouldn’t. Even though I knew how exhausted she must have been. Even though there were little lebam-lebam on her legs from falling while playing at the indoor playground. Even though I knew she was famished because we had delayed lunch far beyond her usual time. Even though she had to do more walking to buy groceries afterwards. 

Before we left, I told her, “This is your choice, so you kenot ngada2 afterwards, okay?”

And she did.

She endured the pain, hunger and exhaustion, by choice.  Not even one complaint.

At the end of the day, she looked at me and said, “I had so much fun today, Mami. Tq Mami,” before giving me sweet little kissus.

-

If they wanted to, they would.

And if you say you would do something, do it. Easy math, even a 6 year old understands that. 

Little Thing 342: Borrowed Time

 

Books:

Remember when I said I'd probably DNF some of these books? Well, because I apparently don’t even listen to my own advice, I told myself to sit with the boredom and endure the journey. I finished Must I Go (Yiyun Li) and The Idiot (Elif Batuman), probably after a year of slow reading. I’ve currently reached 27 books this year. Several others are still in progress, scattered around the house and across my Kindle like little unfinished lives.

The books I finished since the last March: 

• Here After by Amy Lin
• The Great Mental Models , V2
• The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
• Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (*reread)
• The Idiots by Elif Batuman
• Strangers by Belle Burden
• I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokpokki by Baek Se-hee
• Must I Go by Yiyun Li
• Ghost by Raina Telgemeier (novel graphic)
• Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offil

I still don't watch anything other than Gilmore Girls rerun. 

PBAKL is tempting, only sans humans.

-

The Eid Adha:

Sofi and I went back to my mom’s the weekend before Eid, and we had a good time together. Or at least, a version of a good time, if we pretend everything was rainbows and butterflies.

She wasn’t with me during Eid this year, and somewhere in the deepest corner of my heart, I was mopey and missed her terribly. But I promised myself I’d try not to become the party pooper this week. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t have Af to calm my triggered soul, or Sofi to distract me from what is usually one of the harder times for me. So I licked my wounds and sighed into the exhaustion.

Ma asked whether I'm going to cry myself out when I get back.

Of course, who wouldn't?

We own nothing, bb.

-

Going Half:

So, it's June. Almost halfway through 2026.

My pov has shifted since January. Somewhere along the way, I received clarity in a box. Answers to questions that had quietly accumulated over the years. The kind I once begged for. It took me a while to process everything. Perhaps I am still processing it. I told my sister, "this is me verbally processing the information", to that she answered, "I know".

But I think I’m getting there.

There is a full stop at the edge of the line.