This Is the Time. Go.

Mood : 7/10

I don’t know exactly when this feeling began — this ache in my chest that told me, without reason or proof, that I wasn’t supposed to stay here forever. I just remember always feeling it. Like my life was happening inside a box that didn’t quite fit. Not suffocating, not unbearable — just wrong. Off. Too small for who I really was. I couldn’t name it back then. I just knew that even in moments of laughter, even when everything looked fine on paper, a part of me stayed still, untouched. Waiting.

As I got older, that stillness grew heavier. It followed me from childhood into adulthood, into jobs, into conversations I smiled through but felt nothing in. It was like something inside me knew I wasn’t meant to stay in the place where I was born. Like I had been planted in the wrong soil. I didn’t hate Malaysia. This country has given me language, memory, history, food that tastes like comfort. But I’ve never been able to shake the truth: my root is not here.

I used to think that was a selfish thought. That I should be grateful. That I should settle. But something deeper — something quieter and more persistent — kept whispering, "Your life is somewhere else." I always imagined myself in a stranger country, somewhere unfamiliar, standing in the middle of a street I’d never walked before and feeling something click in my chest. “It’s you,” I’d think. “I’ve been looking for you.”

For years, that belief lived in me like a secret. I never said it out loud. I tried to adapt. I worked, I survived, I performed. I was the responsible one, the reliable one, the one who made it look like I had it all together. But deep inside, I was just someone trying not to lose the tiny spark that kept whispering, "One day."

And then came that night.

The night everything in me broke open. The night my body said what my mouth couldn’t anymore. A panic attack that shook me to my core — I couldn’t breathe, I was gasping for air, clutching my head, feeling like I was disappearing. And the one person who should have cared, didn’t. My father responded the way he always did — with coldness, distance, silence. And something in me snapped. A lifetime of being unseen, unheard, unloved in the way I needed came rushing up all at once.

That was the night I decided: no more.

No more pretending. No more shrinking. No more staying in a life that asks me to carry weight that was never mine. That night wasn’t the end — it was the beginning.

A red sign lit up inside me: This is the time. Go.

And for the first time, I listened.

I didn’t run. I chose. I moved toward something.

That’s when the idea of Indonesia began to bloom in me. I didn’t pick it because it was trendy. I didn’t even pick it — it picked me. Bandung, specifically. A city I’ve never been to, never walked through, never breathed in. And yet, it feels like it’s been calling me for years. Not loudly, not dramatically — just gently, patiently.

It didn’t start with a plane ticket. It started with a truth. A knowing. A quiet promise I made to myself years ago, when I looked at my parents and said calmly, without anger: "I will not be like you."

And I kept it.

So here I am. Planning a move to a city I’ve never been, with no job lined up, no one waiting for me, no map of what comes next. Just a feeling. Just a pull. Just a trust in something I can’t explain but have always believed.

I’ll be going for a week this June — a soft landing, a scouting trip. And if it feels right, I’ll come back. Not as a tourist. But as someone who is finally arriving. Home.

I’m afraid. Of course I am. Money is tight. Freelance work is uncertain. I can’t legally work in Indonesia. I have responsibilities. Debts. Fear. But I’ve also carried this ache for years. This need to live differently. To wake up and feel like my life belongs to me.

I’m not chasing escape. I’m chasing alignment.

I don’t want a glamorous life. I want a soft one. One where I can walk to get coffee in the morning and no one expects anything from me. A kos room with a window. A street that feels like possibility. Gojek rides. Rainfall. Quiet freedom.

I may not know what waits for me in Bandung. But I know what doesn’t wait for me here. And that is reason enough.

This isn’t about leaving. This is about arriving. To myself. Finally. Fully.