Just Don't Stop

I could see the finish line before me. I kept running. The more I ran, the closer I was to the finish line. My sight was vague and hazy. Unfocused. I felt like I wanted to die. Each step that I took increased the burden on my shoulders. The farther I ran, the heavier it would be. I felt like I just wanted to give it up, eradicated the burden and fatigue on my shoulders. I was down on my knee, catching my breath.

Finally reached the canyon's peak after several hours hiking

That day was the second Wednesday of April, one of the hottest and the most humid periods of the year in Indonesia. I was in a physical education class for the fifth graders. We had a “marathon” run activity on that day. I did not like this class. I felt like I was not strong enough to do all the exercises. Since our school didn’t have any sport field for the students to run, we went to a nearby soccer stadium with some running lanes around it. The teacher asked us to run for 7 rounds, which was really long run for fifth grade students. My sweat emerged from all the pores on my skin. My shirt was soaked with sweat. My mouth was as bitter as coffee, and my lips were as dry as Atacama Desert. I stopped. A friend of mine approached me. He seemed fine and confident. He stopped and whispered something that I would remember for the rest of my life.

“Whatever happens, regardless how far the finish line is and how tired you are, don’t stop moving. You can be slowing down or even walking, but don’t lose your faith and stop in the middle of the way.”

This life is like we are walking on the running track with infinite loops. We will keep running—or walking—until we can’t walk anymore and until we die. At some point in our life, we might have experienced a severe loss and suffer. We might have a huge burden on our shoulders that we can’t hold it any longer. Sometimes we think that our life is a joke, filled with problems that come over and over again. At some point in our life, we might just want to die. We want to get away with the problems we face. We might want to stop. We might feel so tired with this world, or simply with ourselves living in this world. At this particular moment in our life, if we decided to quit the joke of life, we simply stop living.

A day after the new year of 2013, I got a wrist surgery in a hospital in Texas. I had never been familiar with a surgery and I never imagined that I would have one. Several months prior to the day of the surgery, I felt like my left hand was gradually in pain. It was unpredictable because I did not do anything dangerous or stupid with my hand. So, I went to the hospital to check for my hand’s condition. The doctor said that a small fracture became fractures, then larger fractures, and finally the breakage of the scaphoid bone. To heal my hand completely, the doctor asked me to agree for a surgery operation. After I discussed it with my legal guardian and my parents for this decision, I went for it. I was alone in the United States, without any family around. It was in the middle of winter break where things got harder because that was my first winter ever. I had a medical insurance, but the insurance only covered part of the cost. So, the surgery eventually drained my savings completely. When the effect of the pain medication ran off, I felt an extreme pain. At that moment, I thought that I wanted to just die. I didn’t want to feel the pain anymore. I did not tell my parents how painful it was because I did not want them to worry too much. For the same reason that I did not stop during the marathon run after my friend told me not giving up, I continued my life with a hope that there would be a new day where things would get easier.