20 September 2025
It’s been a while since I last wrote. Maybe it’s because during spring and summer, I just wanted to be outside. Walking more, doing more, feeling the sunshine on my skin. I kept thinking about writing a blog post, but then I’d tell myself: writing is a winter activity. Something about grey skies and cold air makes you want to retreat and reflect.
The truth is, maybe I write when I feel a little lost. When my thoughts begin to knot and I need a place to untangle them. Like now.
I’m one week into my one-month vacation in Indonesia. I usually visit once a year, or whenever there’s a family celebration that calls me home. This time, it’s my sister’s graduation. Afterwards, the three of us (my two sisters and I) set off on a Java trip together. No parents. Just us.
It’s the first time we’ve spent this much time alone, just the three of us. And it turns out, we’re still figuring each other out. My sisters are in college now, and for some reason, I thought they had life all figured out already. But they’re still my little girls. And without meaning to, I slipped back into the big sister role. After three years of mostly being someone’s wife, it felt grounding to be their big sister again.
They, on the other hand, kept forgetting I don’t live here anymore. They talked about people, places, what’s trending, and all, and I was constantly playing catch-up. I had to remind them: my Indonesian life hit pause the moment I left for Germany. It only resumes when I visit again. In many ways, I’m a tourist now. I see what’s on the surface. And they have to keep filling in the blanks for me.
We laughed about it, agreed to bear with each other.
But later it hits me, how strange and tender it is to operate this way. To be too Indonesian to feel fully at home abroad, yet not quite rooted anymore in the country that raised me. There’s a quiet ache that comes with being in limbo. You don’t notice it when you’re busy surviving in your new home. But when you come back and smell familiar air, hear familiar voices, and see yourself in your sisters’ eyes, it surfaces.
I tried to soothe that ache in the only way I could think of: I bought batik. Too much, probably. But maybe it’s my way of holding on, reminding myself that this part of me still matters. That I’m not a stranger to my own story.
Nisadyr 