I got praised multiple times after i packed my bag and left my hometown eight hundred kilometers away. Brave, they said. But is brave really equal leaving everything you had behind, though? 

At the time i am writing this, i just washed my face after ten straight hours in the train. I spent a week in Jakarta just because i had a chance to. All my midterms were conducted online, so straight away i went back to Jakarta by train. The weekend goes nice by the means that i had a very good sleep, very good late wakeups, and an already-served roti bakar or nasi telor as breakfast. Something quite splendid for someone who lives alone far away.  

Its that kind of simple luxury you despise when you are safe under the roof of your parent's house but as you go far away and live somewhere else you kinda crave it, not so much, but enough to sometimes have intrusive thoughts to just pack back your stuffs and go back to your hometown, and for me, enough to make me come home twice in three months. REPEAT, twice within three months! 

Right after i posted my snapgram at Jatinegara Station, i receive some messages which actually screams the same for me, 

lu kok balik mulu sih?

why are you coming home often?

Believe me, i know it's a pure curiosity but in the back of my mind, i keep thinking otherwise. All of the praises for leaving home at eighteen years old for something that might bet all my life become a burden, i got suddenly cornered by their innocent curiosity (which was not their fault, by the way. It's my head that keeps messing with me). I was feeling worthless all of sudden, it feels like I'm just a coward trying to flee from my birth nest to just come back by the winter comes. 

By the morning after that thoughts wander around my head, roti bakar tastes so bitter even after i put so much strawberry jam in it. 

But here's a thing i realized during my ten hours journey from Pasar Senen to Pasar Turi, 

I don't need to be ashamed for coming home. 

And i also don't need to be ashamed for wanting the safety of my parent's house, even for a moment. I don't need to be ashamed for wanting the warmth of my childhood bedroom. I don't need to be ashamed for wanting the love of roti bakar in the morning to fill me up. 

It was really a big pride for being called brave, it almost like i can do anything easily, impeccably, but the bitter truth is that brave does not equal fearless. Staying here alone without anyone i trust within my sight is my biggest fear. Coming home reassured me that my fear would not eat me alive because i will always have somewhere to escape, my safe shelter, my home, Jakarta. Coming home, even for a slightest moment, validated my feelings of being in fear (thus i believe there is nothing wrong to have fears). 

Anyway, this whole post really resonates with this song. Go take a listen after you read this :)