Hot Topic: Thank You Melbourne

I'm writing this thousands of miles above ground with popped ears and dry eyes. It's the type of flight that feels heavy; like I'm leaving something important behind. And I am. I'm leaving my friends, restaurant waitresses that know my regular orders, the bouncers in bars that no longer ID me, and the street beggars who I've had the privilege of getting to know. The most important years of my life were in Melbourne, and now I'm going back to the city that I wanted so badly to get away from.

Let's get to it:

I came to Melbourne as a 16 year-old, and I was as naive as can be. I didn't know how to do laundry or make my own instant noodles. I've never held hands with a boy or lived independently. Yet I knew moving was the right decision. I willingly said goodbye to my friends and departed that fateful night in June 2011, and shed no tears. I wanted to leave because I knew that there were things I could only experience amidst true autonomy. And I was right.

People used to scoff at my decision to go to Australia. While my friends set out their sights on California, New York, or London, I was one of the handful that chose the humble Melbourne. It was a country so near to Indonesia and least glamorized in the media that no one wanted to be that close to home. But it isn't about proximity, it's about what you can do once you're there.

Melbourne is a city where you'll never run out of places to eat and people to meet. It's full of the most accepting, caring, and friendly people you'll ever encounter. I have stumbled home alone at 4AM with a little too much to drink, and I never had to worry about anything but walking in my painful heels. It's a city with musicians from different walks of life, trying to make music in every corner of the bustling metropolis. To me, it's a place where I found freedom and happiness, and I couldn't imagine being anywhere else but here.

After over a decade of being told what time I should come home or where I'm forbidden to go, I became stuck in a web of lies. I was always home late, and I was never with the people I say I was going to be with. The places I went to were only half truths, and I grew up with my friends who did the same to their equally overprotective parents. So when I found myself with 24 hours in a day, with keys to my own apartment and only the silence and darkness to greet me everyday, I finally tasted bliss.

I have learned more in 4 years than my entire existence in Jakarta. I've conversed with a Libyan ship captain who encouraged me to visit Malta. I have shared drinks with a nurse from a mental hospital who moonlights as a DJ. I have celebrated St. Patrick's day with Canadian pilots who starred in their own reality TV show back home. With no one to tell me how to live my life, I ended up just doing what made me happy and meeting people with the very same principle. My greatest fear is coming back to my own home, in my own country, and not having the same freedom and control over time I've gotten so accustomed to. 

I have been put in dangerous situations and met all the wrong people, but I was never given that chance when I was younger. I was stuck in a little bubble of security and privilege. Without a safety net, I learned to tread the waters carefully and wisely. But most of all, I began to see the good in people. Melbourne raised me to believe there's kindness in everyone. You can talk to the strangers next to your table about what to order, talk about wedding plans with random girls on a night out, and walk around the city with someone you just met after buying coffee in a laneway. In Melbourne, there are no strangers, just future friends.

There's a sweet feeling to being able to meet anyone, anytime, anywhere, without a second thought of traffic, curfews, or any restrictions that you didn't willingly impose on yourself.  Accessing places and friends have never been easier, and I would be bereft of that efficiency when I'm back in Jakarta.  It's a place where relationships can bloom quickly and beautifully. Instead of sporadic meetings with your partner during the weekends, you have the option to visit them at work during lunch—which is only a train stop away. Instead of keeping your idiosyncrasies to yourself, your partner can be there for all of them when they move in. I've become used to the beauty of waking up next to a loved one and ending the day with the very same person. I'll have to tackle relationships in a completely new way when I'm in Jakarta, and it's going to feel bizarre.

There are things that Jakarta cannot give me, and they are very important things indeed. Its behemoth malls and perpetually gray skies were never made for me. Yet the city pulled me in 4 years later, trying to woe me once more. I suppose I can learn to enjoy the little things the Big Durian has to offer, but I don't think it can ever compare to the absolute independence and ease that I had when I was in Melbourne. Being back in Jakarta is like trying to wear my old, worn-out jeans—it fit me fine years ago, but I've outgrown it.