2025 ends with a swaddle of softness.

as an enthusiast for the gleaming orangey hues sky when the day is retreating back to its shore, my feelings are always on its zenith during the sunset. after a long day, i long for the time to basking myself under the sunset warmth, to sit in the quiet park, or to be by the beach, letting the stillness taking over my consciousness.

recently, i stumbled upon a a series of prompts in my feed, and one particular sentence struck my attention;

"do seafarers ever get bored of watching the sunset?"

 

trying to put myself in their shoes, i envy them. for the opportunities to oversee sunset in the vast sea without obstruction everyday, with its lights gleaming and sparkling on the waves- a view that i can only get when i stroll along the Seine river after finishing my classes at uni. 

but then, since it's a view they encounter everyday, have they ever get bored from it? even the most beautiful diamond can lose its charms in the eye of its beholder- sparks can fade by time, tempo can slow down when not maintained, and love can be diluted over time. is that the curse of being gifted of something beautiful? or is it actually a gift that shows us that nothing is actually permanent in this dunya?

reflecting back, how many times have i taken something for granted? - countless. 

 

maybe that's why Allah created things to be temporary- the family that lives in our heart, the life partner that we have longed for, the friends that we seek comfort from, the youth we're hanging onto, the health that's often overseen, and the time that keeps slipping away like the sand through our fingertips. Because it's in our primitive-humanistic nature that we'll only appreciate things if they're temporary- if we know there's an 'expiration date' for the connection to last. 

so, is it a curse, or a gift?

 

perhaps, if someone ask me what's the biggest lesson of my 20s, it is the art of letting go.  

having the privileges of growing up with cares, having my tank of loves filled by my family, i may have grown too complacent in appreciating what i have. now that i am entering my 5th year living abroad (crazyyy!), i have learnt to cherish the present more, and to be okay with goodbyes. some connections may last longer, but sometimes they are there just for a chapter of our book, or maybe just for a brief cameo along the lines in our book. though some friendships can be intense, once we part away, the connections can fade over time. and that's totally fine. 

i think we're too hung up to the concept of measuring a connection on how 'long-lasting' or 'durable' it is, and that, if it's getting cut and severed, that means it's not a 'real' or 'genuine' one. but i beg to differ. it seems like we've been using the wrong metrics in 'measuring' it. rather than time-wise, i think what matters more is how you actually felt at the moment of the connection- the intensity and the rawness, during the present while it lasts. and how it change you as a person; perhaps it's the story they told us that inspire us, perhaps it's the kindness they bestowed to us that we want to mirror to the others as well, perhaps it's their attitude and principles that we learn from, or perhaps, it's just their quiet presence during the time that we need the most. 

and once the connection is faded away, we might feel the regrets or somber- and it probably hurts. 

but the grief we felt is not a mere negative feelings, it is actually an attestment of how deep and real the connection was- it is a proof of being humans.  

it took me some times to realise this. I think it was only halfway of my journey abroad- the 3rd year, after I came back from Glasgow that I realised how life actually comes with different flavours at once- the happiness, the sadness, the regrets, the fears- and we can't just pick one 'flavour' and try to stick with it all time. It is the heterogenousity that adds to the complex taste- giving layers upon layers of 'flavours' and feelings that made life feels... alive.

back then, i tried not to be too attached to people- not because of the fear of losing, but the fear of being too dependant on others- since i know it will all be temporary anyway. though at that moment i didn't notice it and thought i was way better off by myself- to survive in my own bubble and island. and i hate to inconvenient others- asking for help feels like stripping myself away (still till now though). but i guess that's what it feels being a first-child when i'm used to do everything and figure things out by myself (not justifying it though). 

and i guess, this is what people nowadays would call being detached. took me a while to figure it out. i think to some extent it's nice to be able to detach from the worldly matters- because in the end of the day, nothing is guaranteed to last forever. but, rather than 'running away' or pretending it all didn't matter, we should embrace the privileges and rizq of having those around us- to appreciate them and do our best in being kind and graceful to others. rather than focusing on 'their roles' in our life, maybe it's time to look inwardly and ponder upon;

'why Allah brings me to their life? what is He trying to convey to them through me?'

it is the act of putting the effort to be the person that us ourself would want to befriend/be in love with (because how can you expect others to appreciate and be with you, if you can't stand being with yourself?) :'

SO, if there's another lesson i can say that i learnt in 2025, it is that to be truthful to our feelings and to stand for it. i think, especially in this age where showing our emotions and care to others seems daunting and even lowful(???)- because it made us prone to being disappointed in the end, people glorify being 'nonchalant'. not that it's entirely bad- everyone has their own way and capacity of expression emotions- and that's totally human. what we need is the 'discernment' of our own capacity of caring and showing up for others, AND how our emotions and attitudes can affect others. 

two weeks ago, i've written an entry that sheds light on modern society's take on emotional intelligence and how damaging the narrative can be when being used for self-defence without discernment (you can read it here). though most of the time, i still struggle of expressing my emotions verbally (that's why i like to write because i can organise my thoughts and articulate them better), i try to be more open and receptive to communication- especially if they are hard conversations. i think those kind of conversations are the ones that brings genuine connection- and truth is much more preferable than assumptions made in mind (:

so to recapitulate everything:

1. in 2024, my biggest lesson was that everything has a price, each of our action ripples consequences, whether it is small or big.

2. in 2025, my biggest lessons are to let things go, and let God. nothing is permanent in this dunya, but grief is also a blessing to show how much we have 'lived' and felt. 

3. lastly, to be truthful and not conceal my emotions anymore due to 'fear'. by not putting a blockage to my heart and mind, i open doors for genuine communication and connection to occur (:

and that, marks the end of my 2025. a year full of trials and blessings. alhamdulillah.

and may you who read this, will have the days to come in a gentle and peaceful way. may Allah protect us all in His blessings, and may we stay steadfast in our principles and in what we believe in, amin.

bgm- no one noticed by akmigone

*extra: my fav entries of the year (this year has been filled with lots of reflections and writings, yey!)

1. the art of believing despite anxiousness.

2. i want to live for you.

3. faith and courage- a heartfelt conversation with her (:

4. BJ Habibie and Germany

5. 21.11.25 - just by the seine river

first written on 31st of Dec 2025 (23:58), 

finalised on the 1st of Jan 2026 (20:20),

paris

in holding in the love you can’t hold.

 What will happen when you yearn to love, but you are unable to, at the moment?

When the love comes, and yet you’re still in the process of moulding your cup. Still sculpting its shapes, brushing its edges from sharpness, curving its surfaces with your fingerprints- still far from being perfect, not strong and big enough yet- to receive and hold the love. 

Would that be a big tragedy?

People, and melancholic books and movies often define this phenomenon as ‘the right person, the wrong time’. But, is that true?

Would it still be the right person, if you meet at the ‘wrong time’, clicking in every aspects, and yet still drifted apart by fate?

Would that still be the right person? 

Yearning and longing- I found these two as the most raw feelings you can have towards someone. It’s not about the grand gesture- ‘oh I will burn the world to show my love and die for you’. But, it is in the quietest, whispered form of professing your heart towards another soul when no one can hear nor notice it. It's when you wake up in the 3/4 of the dawn to whisper their name in your prayers. It’s like burying a secret deep in your heart, hoping no one would take a notice upon it. Because something unknown to humans poses no apparent consequences, and something known to God means reverence. 

Over my course of life, I’ve been shying away from this matter of love. Despite being the ‘hopeless romantic’ person, engulfing stories upon stories of two fiction souls who always find their way to each other before the ink and minutes run out, I still don’t know if the same ends will find me in real life. 

People say to be loved is to be seen. Two people can pour love and affection towards each other, but still feel ‘unloved’, just because their way of loving is ‘different’. It’s not just about the ’numerical effort’ being put into a relationship, but also the ‘metrics’ that’s being used for conveying the affection. 

To love is not to speak the same ‘language’, but to try to comprehend each other despite the ‘different languages’- to keep learning, over and over again. So both of us feel seen and loved. 

I guess that’s how I define what ‘love’ is. It is to keep learning and understanding the other person, and to fall in love over and over again with the different versions of them, as we discover new layers and dimensions of them over time. And to achieve this, communication is needed. 

I guess that’s the main key: ‘communication’. And for that to happen, we would need to lay ourself out in vulnerability, to be honest, and to face the hard conversations. Although that sounds daunting, that’s actually the ultimate way to finally establish a genuine connection in the rawest form of love.

and I found that’s a beautiful thing to do (: 

I guess all these times, I’ve been too caught up in my own world trying to ‘perfect’ my own cup, trying to control every outcome and possibilities, that I ended up cutting any opportunities for genuine connection to be made, and I thought that was the best decision to be made at that time. I thought I was doing the other person a favour in his place. 

But, someone just told me that I shouldn’t decide for the other person- as we all have our own right to love or not to love. I guess he is right. I’ve never thought it from that perspective before. 

To love is to give autonomy and trust to the other person. And whatever the outcome is, as long as it started with genuine intention and effort from both sides, it doesn’t matter. Whether it’s positive or not, that’s just how life is. If it is not meant to be together, that means it was an experience for us to learn. After all, life is all about learning and reflecting from each person we encounter in life. 

We are a mosaic of everyone we meet and love. Maybe we are meant to share just a chapter together and move on, or maybe, just maybe, we are meant to complete a whole book together till the ink runs out (:

So until then, until the time comes when a soul is sure enough to enter my highly-defensed garden, to convince me to take the hand, I shall keep nurturing it with healthy soils and growth. I shall be content with myself, to be secured myself, to gain as much as knowledge is possible, to be a better and healthier version of myself, so that when the time comes, I can love the person in a way they deserve, and we can bloom and grow in our little cosy garden together. 

Because a healthy love should not come from a place of fear of losing each other, but it should come from a place of abundance and trust in each other. If we establish a relationship from a place of lacking and fearfulness, it will crumble in time. But if it is done from a place of wanting to be better together, with a good niyyah- to gain His blessings, we will be in His guidance. 

It is like the saying,

I am complete by myself, but together we become whole and better. 

And, isn’t it beautiful that Allah has actually preordained the name of our partner from 50,000 years ago, even before the heaven meets the earth??? To know that Allah has honoured us with a soul of His creation that’ll be in our amanah- to care, to respect, and to grow with them? What a beautiful order.

“And one of His signs is that He created for you spouses from among yourselves so that you may find comfort in them. And He has placed between you compassion and mercy. Surely in this are signs for people who reflect.”  - Surah Ar-Rum (30:21)

In the end of the day, we only want to get comfort from the one we love. We only want a ‘safe house’ to come back to after dealing with the worldly-matters, so we can rest and find joys in the simple things. And so we can strive for His path in tranquility and peace together. 

So for those who are reading this, I pray may Allah let us reunite with the one destined for us at the best time and condition. Though the road may be long and bumpy, as long as our niyyah and intention is genuine, I am sure, it will all be fine (:

bgm 

- amin paling serius by sal priadi + nadin amizah

- i'd like to watch you sleeping by sal priadi

Tue, 30th of Dec 2025

00:007,

Paris

21.08.25 jakarta macet

 (a short prose i wrote back in summer this year)

I stumbled upon a post where someone said that maybe ‘we’ are born in Indonesia so we can have more empathy.

And that hits me hard in the gut.

Growing up in a relatively more comfortable environment in Malaysia, I couldn’t help but to compare it with my hometown. Where the huge gap between different social classes is too apparent. 

When I can comfortably sit in the car, manuevering around Jakarta and enjoying the beautiful places and delicacies, there are people on the road, enduring the scorching heat, bathed in sweat, dragging themselves against tireness to sell things amidst the chaos of traffic jam.  

I used to complain about the traffic jam, or ‘macet’, and the lack of traffic lights in big roads. But maybe these conditions come as blessings in disguise, to give the ‘space’ for those to find the means to eat, to survive.

The guilt of being able to enjoy life churned in my stomach from times to times, not just because of the frustration towards the systemic issues that persisted for generations; ‘the rich gets richer, and the poor gets poorer’, but also because sometimes i’m blinded by my own greed that I forget about the blessings and privileges that Allah has bestowed to me.

I kept looking up in resentment, rather than looking down in gratitude.

These internal conflicts disgust me. Yet it exemplified how humans greed serve no limit; enough is nonexistant. 

My wish is that I can keep myself grounded and present, so I can cherish what I have. After all, everything that I ‘own’ now are titipan dari Allah, and that all of it will be questioned by Allah once we leave the Earth; 

‘have you been responsible with what you have, did you use them for goodness, or did you instead menzalimi other people through your means?’

may Allah guard our heart always, amin.

9:32 am on the way to Ambasada de Franța, Jakarta

21.08.25

21.11.25 - just by the seine river

Just by the seine river, the alley has gone quiet. 

It’s friday night, and people are flocking in the streets with their friends, colleagues- to call the end of the weekday, to celebrate another passing week. People are laughing, jumping in excitement, doing little movements to heat their bodies amidst the freezing (early) winter. The street is full of jubilence, because it is the end of weekday.

But just by the seine, just by the riverbank, the alley has gone quiet.

Some people, very few one, resorted to the tranquility offered by the seine river amidst the chaos of the main streets. One stair down the street, with warm light illuminating the riverbank, some people are finding solace and peace- including me.

Just at the opposite site of the river, 3 teenagers are sitting by the river, chattering and enjoying their youth moment. I’m wondering if they realise that this random night they spend together will never come back. Well maybe it will, but it will not be with the same feelings- the feeling when they are still clueless about the future, and have not also been corrupted by hopelessness of adulthood.

Just at the bench right next to me, a couple are spending their time together. Sharing whispers of laughters and intimacy. I wonder how long they have been together, and how many times they forgive each other- to never give up, despite the adversities and clashes of hearts?

A few stone’s away from me at the opposite side, an old man is sitting on the bench by himself. ‘What could he pondering upon during this quiet night?’

A middle age person jogging through the riverbank just by wearing shorts, passing by me. ‘How is he not cold? what makes him keep going, despite the chilling breeze?’

A ferry called ‘bateaux parisiens’ went through- disrupting the harmonic flow of the wave and light. I sit still in the bench, watching the water. It takes 3 minutes, 5 minutes-10 minutes, till the wave stabilise back. I guess that’s how life is. At one phase, it feels like life is full of turbulence, each day unresolved with new wounds and disturbance. At that moment, it felt like forever.

But we keep going, against the tide, against the harshness. Second by second, minutes, by minutes, days by days. 

Until we find ourself again, until we find our rhythm back, just like those old days.
Just like how the waves calm down after the passing of the ferry.
It’s all temporary. 

And then, there’s me, sitting by myself, admiring the glistening reflection of the warm street on the water. They look like sparkles. The wind blow softly, pushing the small waves- orchestrating the slow movement of illuminating light on it. How beautiful it is. 

Just by the seine river, I am accompanied by the silent stillness. Just staying, just being, absorbing the feeling of becoming, while longing for a soul in her heart.

playing bgm: la petite fille de la mer by vangelis

22:16 vendredi ,

seine river, 

paris

to humanise ‘human’

Some times ago, I found a really interesting prose online, and it has been living rent free in the back of my mind. The short essay goes along the line in which they’re explaining about how our society has claimed to master the art of ‘emotional intelligence’.

With our daily engagement to digital media, we are getting exposed to ‘psychological’ and self-help content to help us know our emotions better. But despite this bold claim, why does it seem like people this age struggle a lot in fostering real connection? Isn’t the capability of understanding should lead to a betterment in navigating one’s dynamix in a relationship? Perhaps, the argument that we all are now ‘aware’ of our own EQ is largely attributed to perceiving EQ as a tool for self-defense, rather than for truly comprehending those around us. 

So, let’s first define what is actually an ‘emotional intelligence’. 

Ruisel (1992) portrayed Emotional intelligence as understanding others in a social context in such a way that it enables one to detect nuances in emotional reactions and use this knowledge to influence others by controlling and regulating emotions.

From the first read, we can understand that having EQ means noticing the subtle emotional and social clues, and for leveraging these observations to act in our best interest. 

Which is well, fair enough.

But, what I think is missing from us nowadays is that, we perceive having EQ as being good in identifying what’s ‘wrong’ with others. We start to label one’s behaviour and naming the patterns- ‘red flags’, ‘emotionally absent’, ‘avoidant’, ‘self-projection’… 

Though it is true that verbalising these labels helps us to assess the situation/person in a more objective way, we got too good and focusing more on ‘diagnosing’, before acting on ‘understanding’ first.

Rather than trying to comprehend why someone is acting that way- we shy away from the opportunity to create genuine connection without even taking a glimpe of what lays inside a person behind their masks. We start to associate these ‘imperfections’ as danger signals and we retreat away immediately- we start to ‘dehumanise’ humans. 

I think having EQ is not just about being good in recognising these patterns, but it is actually about having the discernment- to know when it is the right time to continue the connection, or to end it, while still being graceful to ourselves and those around during the process. 

The fact that people are glorifying the ‘art of detachment’ without truly understanding the context and nuance behind it is detrimental to us society as a whole, the same applied to the blatant cancel culture, or the celebration of nonchalance culture. 

When we start to hold everyone else to be on the same emotional standard and understanding as we are- to also posses the ‘same level of EQ’, to be able to ‘fully-healed’ from their trauma, to express themselves fully with transparency- we will only get disappointment in the end. Because by then, we’ll realise that everyone has different journey and pace, and that we’ll always be alone overseeing from the top of the mountain. We can’t force anyone to ‘be healed’, be wise, and be understanding, when they themselves are still struggling surviving against the battles that no one knows, when they haven’t known what it is to love and to be loved without conditions. And this frustration is what lead us to resort to detaching ourself fully from the person. As we’re afraid that by staying longer, we’ll also be exposed to our old scars and intrusive thoughts that we have long buried inside ourselves. 

The last time, I joined a workshop by a doctoral psychologist from Indonesia, who is currently doing his post-doc in Japan, to understand more about different kind of attachment in interpersonal relations. He kept emphasising that what we need to strive for is to build our self-awareness, while still giving grace to others who are still in the processing phase. The goal is not to find other person who is ‘as secured’ as us, but to be aware of how they are as human beings, and to act in the best way to provide comfort space for each other together. It is to grow together, rather than to policing one another. 

By any means, I am not encouraging you to stay in the destructive friendship/relationship and be oblivious of the harms they are causing to you mentally/physically. But what I want to delineate is that, we should stay firm in our own journey and be introspective of our own actions, while also giving others the grace in their own journey. 

The goal is not to build a tall impermeable walls around us to protect our ‘peace’, but it is to nurture our own garden with strong roots and foundation, so that no matter how harsh the rain and disaster that befall us, we’ll be able to flourish again when the sun comes out. 

It is to give room for people to be ‘human’ again. 

We can only pour love to others from a place of abundance, not from a place of lacking and fear. We can stay firm and secured of ourselves, if we allow ourselves to embrace our own, and others’ imperfection. We can avoid confusing detachment with regulation and control, if we ‘humanise’ ourselves and those around us. 

When we make peace with the fact that imperfection will always be a part of us, we make room for genuine connection to flourish, we allow two souls to come together to share the comfort, and we allow vulnerability and transparency to be something sacred, not scary. 

After all, it is okay to struggle, it is okay to be in process, and it is okay to not be okay,

because we are all just human being living for the first time in this finite lifetime (:

bgm - alone by 임채원 

(writings prompted after reading this amazing post)

love, 

heba 

15.12.25

22:14, paris