How I Keep My Sanity by Moving 1,940 Kilometers Away from Home

With no exact plan, I decided to move to an island I’ve never been to before. I left my friends, my comfortable hometown and all the facilities of a big city to find myself.

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Most Indonesian I know will do anything to be able to work and live in Bandung city, my hometown. It’s a compact city where you can find fancy malls with high-end brands on one side, and enchanting mountain range in other. It is located in a tropical country, but because of the altitude, it’s relatively breezier than most other big cities in Indonesia.

I was born there but lived somewhere else for the first 18 years of my life. After finished with high school, I was accepted to one of the best colleges in the country which also happened to be located in Bandung. So in 2011, with 2 big luggage on both hands, I started my journey and stayed exactly 8 years there.

I graduated in 2015 and most of my friends moved out to bigger cities for work right after that. But for me at that time, I knew that I won’t sacrifice the comfort of my beautiful hometown for a high paying job in the capital city. I decided to stay behind. My first two years of post-graduation time were filled with some underpaid jobs (it just not a place for building up a career). But even so, I can say I was happy and content. In 2018, I finally set up my sewing studio and was doing great as a seamstress. I made a good income, I hung out often with my few-close-friends, and actively involved in many local communities. Everything sounds okay, but I don’t know why I felt something was bothering me every single day…

“It’s too comfortable, it suffocates me.”

I said that exact words to my best friends. The last couple of years I’ve lived there, I basically know everything by heart and it made me indolent. I lost any interest in exploring anything new there, I hung out in the same place over and over again, I ate almost the same type of meal every day out of my laziness. Yes, I went out and joined many clubs and assemblage, but then, in the end, I realized that… I didn’t do it because it’s fun, I did it because I didn’t want to be excluded and ostracized.

“Something is not right.”

Finally, I said that. I looked into my eyes in the mirror’s reflection and saw a tired lady who had no time to find herself. This lady worked 14 hours per day and went on ‘pleasing others’ in her spare time just because she was afraid of alienation. The thing that she loved to do, sewing, became her torture device. Her back hurt every day, her sight worsens, and last but not the least, her mental health deteriorated at a scary speed.

I do have another big issue in my life (mostly family and relationship problems) that contributes to my mental episodes, but I also believe that the feeling of ‘have-no-more-room-to-grow’ plays a big role too. I had sleeping problems, eating problems, and anxiety attacks from that mixture to the point that I was contemplating suicide twice.

I was so scared of myself and finally determined to act on it. I burned most of the bridges to my problems by severing contact with people who constantly let me down. I moved out of the town in discreet, deactivated most of my social media accounts, changed my nickname, and living a humble life in an island 45 minutes from Singapore.

Batam was intimidating at first. I had zero friends to begin with and I had zero knowledge about this place when I first stepped out of the ferry. I booked an overprice lodging in my first month and was so scared of going outside for food. I landed a so-so job in a Singapore start-up company that can’t afford to pay local Singaporean as a marketer. And for the first time in my life, I’m working 9–6.

Sometimes you need to go outside your comfort zone to lost and finally find yourself again.

I can’t deny I was almost lost it in the first two weeks. I spent my time regretting my decision of moving to such a ‘weird’ place. Culture shock hit me hard and loneliness played with my fragile mind. But then — I don’t know where it came from — I started to accept everything, I offered myself a piece of peaceful agreement and suddenly I feel not so bad anymore. Since then, I am opening myself more to my office mates (with my brand new persona) and it eases my loneliness. I also make lots of island-hopping plans to explore even ‘weirder’ islands nearby. I document my daily foods; mostly vegetarian (read: fake) meat, I connect to my acquaintances in Singapore and upgrade them into my friends. These new things give me a healthy amount of stress, and now I have more time to look within myself and have conversations with my conscience.

I still have no idea where my ‘true self’ is; but no matter how deep it is buried inside, I’ll find it and I’ll love it with all of my mighty power.

Xx,