A night to remember

Music scene has changed. That's usually what I'm thinking every time I went out for a drink or a night out. Music scene has bore me so much that most of the time I refuse to go out. I'd rather stay at home and listens to my own music than going out spending money but only listens to crapy musics. But it was different last friday. There was an event with my favourite dance music genre, Drum and Bass, and it was magical. 

The event, well known in Jakarta, Bandung and Bali as Phunktion by the Javabass crew, is the longest running Drum and Bass night and the longest event series in the dance music scene in Indonesia. They were celebrating their 100th episodes of the event. The event is a monthly event and last celebration marking their 10th year in making the event non-stop! What an accomplishment I must say as a genre that still considered 'underground'. 

Going for a DnB event for me is more like therapeutic experience than going to a party and getting piss drunk. To be honest, I don't know if there is anyone else that feels the same as I do, but just listening to the music itself can make me feel so high that I don't need any other substances to make the night perfect. 

I started to fell in love with DnB since 2009. I remember vividly when and where I listened to the first track of DnB. It was in a friend's car, going from my house back to uni. The track was Blood Sugar by Pendulum. Back then, well even now, this genre was so weird for a lot of people and somehow it define me more as a person, that longing feeling to be different. From just listening to tracks in my mp3 players then I started to know people in the scene and now become somewhat a family. I become one of the regular in every Phunktion event. Each time I went to Phunktion, there will be this euphoric feelings that my heart can feel also feeling satisfied from dancing and jumping the whole night. Last Friday, those feelings intensified by 100. The track that the DJ's played, the crowd and the Javabass family made the night so magical that I wished that the night will never end. You see, as an underground scene, we don't really care about backgrounds, how do you look, do you have a car or not or do you have tons of money in your bank account or not. Nothing was fake that night. The crowds melted together in the music and just dance the night away. A very very beautiful sight. 

Phunktion means more than just a get together event for me, it is somehow a reminder that there is always a place where I can just be myself without have to worry about people's judgement. A place that will always welcomed me. A place I can run too. A sanctuary...  

This is how it begins ...

A friend ask me what motivates me to get me to a better place in life. I think there will be only one answer to that. It is happiness. Happiness in what I do, happiness in what I am, happiness in every single aspect of my life. In order to understand why I answer happiness, there is a little or perhaps quite a lot of things that you need to know about me.

As a child I must say that my life was quite a happy and an amazing life. Having parents that always provides me with whatever I need. I never had to worry about school, place to stay, food, comfort, love, attention etc. I had all the toys that I want. I had my own room which was decorated according to what I want. I had dogs, lots of them. My house had a huge yard and my father built me a treehouse. I was a very happy kid. Then things changed when my father passed away when I was in Junior High School. My father, a person whom I respect, love and care so much, has left me. My world crumbled. I know nothing about living without a father. My relationship with my mother was not in a good condition. I was never really that close with my mother anyway. So when my father passed away.... it feels like there will be no more happiness in my life.

Things escalated, my relationship with my mother turned from bad to worse within a time span of less than 5 years. Why? Well, we lost the house and all the savings. I personally held her responsible for everything that had happened which made us lost it all. I was 19 back then, I can't understand it any better. As a teenage going trough all of the problems I had at home, I did pretty good at school but I was so not happy that throughout my first two years of university the thoughts of ending my own life were pretty intense. 


Things did not got any better at home and I was given a choice to continue to study in university but if I do, my little sisters will not be able to continue or the other way around. So I choose to dropped out off school and started full time working. I actually had been working freelance jobs in my first two years of university.

The first full time job that I got brought me to Bali. A whole new chapter in my life. At that moment I think that moving from Jakarta to Bali was so great, it is a clean new slate for me. For the first time in a long time I was happy and afraid at the same time. I do have a family living there but at that moment I don't have my mother support (financially) and our relationship was very bad. I haven't seen here in two years, rarely spoken to her. So even though I was excited and happy to move from Jakarta, I was so afraid that if anything goes wrong I will be stranded for a long time in someone else's city. I was 21 when I moved to Bali.

For a short while I felt so happy that I just want to stay in Bali forever. I was so free. No one saying no to what I want to do, no one judging me, everyone were so chilled and there are beaches everywhere. I love beach. I went to parties almost every night, I drink and do drugs. I made my first tattoo (now I have 27). I had the time of my life. It felt like a dream. I thought it will never end.

It took me 1,5 years until I hit rock bottom. The effects of drinking and partying and not sleeping, all the things that I thought were happiness slowly slowly eating me inside. I become so depressed that the thoughts of killing my self, that I have successfully pressed for almost two years, came back and hit me hard. After 6 months of deliberating with my self whether should I stay in Bali or should I move back to Jakarta, I chooses to go back to Jakarta. In my head, going back to Jakarta and be together with the family will perhaps cured me from the depression.

But things are not as simple as that.

I came back with a positive mind that I want to fix what I have left behind in Jakarta. My relationship with my mother, my relationship with my family and most important, my relationship with myself. I guess, I did not want it enough for a few years after I came back that whatever I wanted to fix become even more complicated.

Until recently, I met someone... He has been a huge help in my self reformation. I started to let go all the anger that I held back for almost a decade towards my mother, who lost all the things we had, and to my father, because he left me from when I was too young. I let go to all the disappointment that I felt for my mother and especially myself. I probably disappoint my self in every form that you can think about. I abuse my own body, I abuse my own mind. 

I let go ... and for the first time in a very very long time I am happy and relieve. I start to making plans. I want to go back to university to get my degree, then have my masters and PhD. I want to get married to this man that help me through my self reformation, I want to have a family with him, I want to have dogs again, I'm starting to have dreams and hopes again. 

For the first time in my life I have a goal. I just want to be happy. Just that one single word. Happy.