Dancing Elephants Press | Life Lessons | This Happened To Me | Memories | Growth

Even Our Stress Grows With Us… Part One

In response to Dancing Elephants Press prompt 33 of 52

I read Dr. Preeti Singh’s “Life and its Precious Memories,” and thought of a couple of episodes in my life that were beautiful and inspiring.

They weren’t beautiful because they were stress-free… they were beautiful because they allowed me to express my creativity, to be who I am without a doubt, yet with lots of doubts… does that make sense? I meant to say I was being me, and part of being me was to operate with a sense of doubt. At times, my doubts were actually helpful; they kicked my butts to do something because they bugged me to the point I was exhausted and said, “Crap! Just do it!”

Those moments were beautiful because I allowed myself to be open with others, letting others be beside me and being grateful that others allowed me to be a part of them.

Let me start by sharing those moments first…

I was the president of the student body in middle school. I was elected in eighth and ninth grade.

During the first year of my leadership, I was proud to accomplish one of my missions: to honor an Indonesian heroine and educator, Ibu Kartini, who I kept close to my heart. I will write about her in another article.

It took roughly three weeks to prepare for the celebration. The D-day is April 21. I had to ask permission to have that day as a “non-academic” day. We, the student body, had to choose the appropriate teacher to deliver the speech during the assembly; we didn’t want the dull, full of advice kind of speech. Between the candidates of our PE teacher, math, and music teacher, we chose our PE teacher.

Then, the fun stuff! We had to choose the kind of activities that we would be doing. Lots of competitions will be held at the same time. Some were academically oriented, like history and a math quiz; others were more physically competitive, and others were performances like poetic reading, drama, and a couple of ethnic dances.

We decided to incorporate some academics to respect RA (Raden Ajeng) Kartini’s mission. She believed in education; she believed that education would free us from colonialism.

I woke up at 4:30am on the D-day. My Mom had contacted a salon that agreed to open at 5:00am, just for me, to dress me in a kebaya, a Javanese ethnic dress, and as much as I was against it, to bun my hair up and do makeup. Below is a picture of what kebaya looks like.

Comfortable? Not! The sarong limited my ability to walk or jump, and the hair? It’s somewhat heavy. I couldn’t run to fear that my bun would lose and my hair would be an absolute disaster… not to mention the strong smell due to the amount of hairspray used to maintain its neatness!

But the pride I felt while on it was indescribable! I felt the blood of my ancestors running inside me, energized me… and to know that one of my ancestors, RA Kartini, was a fighter, a learner, who did the best she could do for the betterment of girls in our country.

The contribution and cooperation of all the students from all grades enthralled me. Fifteen of us were working together at my home, creating decorations for a week; we stayed up until 1:00 in the morning, two days in a row, before D-day. None of us complained; we had disagreements, but ultimately, we could come to terms and do what we needed.

The D- day went so smoothly. We were all spent at the end of the day. We couldn’t eat during the event since we were so busy, so when we finished, we all shared one table, ate so much, and couldn’t stop talking about the day. Laughing and saying to ourselves, “Don’t think we want to do it again!”

Well… we ended up doing it again in ninth grade… a different version, but work and stress were involved nonetheless!

Note: *. Middle school in my country is equivalent to seventh, eighth, and ninth grades in the US. *. Ibu is a way we call a woman who is older than us in Indonesian; it also means mother.

I love to dance… love music… love arts… and I don’t mind performing! I found performing therapeutic. I got to be someone who I dreamt of being or someone who I wasn’t… and to me, it was ( and still is had I given myself a chance) the best way to channel both my inner “angels” and “demons.”

I loved writing and reading poems when I was younger. Well… still is. And one of my Muse was my literature teacher, Ibu Agnes. She was tomboy, genuine, tell it as it is, firm, and far from being a calm and serene individual. She was energetic and moody. Not too many students could get along with her.

Yet, I admired and adored her. Surprisingly, memorizing a two pages poem wasn’t hard when I had to do it for her class. Writing a five pages story was like enjoying a sunrise on the beach, and when she assigned us to study for exams, I looked forward to studying for four to six hours. Her exams were never easy, but instead of being nervous about it, I got excited. I rubbed the palm of my hands together, like the genie in the bottle moment, and knew magic would indeed appear.

Undoubtedly, the “As” from her class were received and honored because I knew I was respected, supported, recognized, and, most importantly, seen.

She never excessively praised me for my performances. She, however, showered me with her smiles and enthusiasm when she saw me. “What are you writing about?”… or, “What do you think about the poem?”… or, “Read this book! Let me know what you think of it!”

And those interactions were precious… I truly felt that I was a learner, a colleague with her. It wasn’t a hierarchical relationship like I am older, you’re younger, I am your teacher, you’re just a student type of interaction.

She was my genie in the bottle…

This is an unfinished article because I haven’t yet gotten a chance to write about why I chose those two memories and why the title of this piece is “Even Stress Grows With Us”…

I don’t want to make the article too long. I will continue my thoughts on the second part of this article…

Dr. Preeti Singh, thank you for the prompt. It directed me to the “how” I would want to present my thoughts about our growth in relation to life’s stressful moments.

My gratitude to the editors at DEP, Dr. Gabriella Korosi, Dr. Preeti Singh, and Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, who are patient, creative, and kind… providing me with a place to share my thoughts with gentle touches and nudges.

And, the fellow writers at DEP… thank you for being together and enjoying the journey with me. To honor this sentiment, these are a couple of articles that touched my inside and brought smiles to my being…

Annelise Lords, in her magical words and image…

Garima Sharma, who empowers us to be curious about the mystery of life…

Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, who keeps on collecting my smiles…