Membaca buku itu biasa. Biasa banget. Menelan 700 halaman lebih bisa dilakukan dalam waktu seminggu dua atau tiga kali malah kalau kamu pembaca yang ahli. Dan nggak sedikit yang bisa melakukannya. Buku bagus pun selalu ada. Banyak pula. Tapi tahu nggak betapa banyak bacaan lain selain buku di luar sana, di internet misalnya?
Berikut beberapa temuan yang worth-reading yang saya temukan dalam perjalanan panjang saya mencari bacaan bagus di internet:



This is one of those gems I found on Twitter melalui tweet dan retweet account-account yang saya follow. Marc and Angel adalah tempat yang tepat untuk menemukan nasehat dan kalimat-kalimat bijak untuk masalah relationship –love relationship, colleague relationship, family, friendship, you name it. You’ll find yourself stopping and staring at the distance and sighing, thinking back to what’s happening in your life at some point while reading their heartwarming articles.
Beberapa artikel yang ‘makjleb’ yang pernah saya temukan:


Medium

Esai-esai dan tulisan fiksi mereka tentang cinta dan hubungan selalu jadi favorit saya. Dan, bonusnya adalah… Aan Mansyur mainan Medium juga!


Quora

Saya mengenal Quora dari salah satu tweet Ika Natassa sekitar pertengahan tahun lalu yang mengatakan bahwa di Quora beliau menemukan banyak jawaban, pertanyaan, dan topik unik. Penasaran, saya akhirnya coba sendiri dan ternyata Quora sampai saat ini adalah tempat kedua saya mencari info setelah Google. Berkali-kali mainan Quora bikin saya membatin, ‘wah, kok ada, ya yang mikir kayak begini?’.
Ini temuan saya beberapa waktu belakangan. The second one really had me.



Beautiful thinking, beautiful illustrations. Berikut salah satunya:



Meng-cover berbagai macam topik mulai dari health, politics, sampai love dan woman, Huffington Post really knows me well. You’re gonna love their witty and attention-grabbing headlines. And you won’t know where they’ll take you click after click on that ‘see also’ section.



Nah, yang mana yang jadi favoritmu?

One of my BFF just got married last Sunday to her three-year boyfriend. Out of curiosity—just like how I always am—we talked on LINE and I asked her many things from their new house to sex. Women my age would react in awe, ‘I wish I was her and got married soon’. Or at least women my age who are in the period of wanting to get married real fast would.

But now, sitting in front of my laptop, writing this, I feel safe. The minute she laughed and said that it is better for her not to tell me anything about it because it may left me envied her, I put my cellphone down, stared at the second mini album art of Monsta X I have been listening to in my laptop, and felt an unfamiliar warmth crept in. Minutes later, after some LOLs and stickers we have exchanged, we ended the chat. And it is still there.
 

Just what in the world happened to the old ‘oh-I-want-my-boyfriend-to-propose-me-too’ reaction I got back in my college days when me and my boyfriend were all lovey-dovey? We’re as lovey-dovey as ever now, entering our fifth year, but I don’t feel the same urge anymore. Instead I think that it’s great not to get married this year or next year. I found this weird and sort of scary. Just imagine this: I’m close to my half twenty, some of my friends got married already, I got a way-too-good boyfriend, we’re so happily committed that we decided to get married someday, yet I think it’s safer and better no to get married. How come the fact that I may not be a normal woman doesn’t scare me?

In a brief look, it’s easier to keep the status quo, in the comfort zone I’ve been living in so fondly. Marriage is a whole new universe—if the word ‘world’ is underrated. A life full of craziness that makes you want to drown yourself in a greasy kitchen sink your husband spilled the leftover mac ‘n cheese on or to strangle him in his sleep twice a week because he snores a lot. I wonder where is the drive to get married and to ‘play house’ I once possessed. Was it poofed when we were arguing over an unreplied message back then? Did we lose something in the middle of our long battle of ignorance? Am I tired of the same man that replies ‘me too’ instead of ‘I love you too’ in the end of our goodnight text? I put strikethrough on every point.

Am I in some kind of denial? Or is it just me being scared of marrying the same man for the rest of my life? After some moments of sitting still in front of my K-Pop playlist, letting the music drumming in my ears while I don’t remember what track has just played, I figured out what is really happening here. The most possible answer I can think about is the latter. It is me being scared of the marriage itself that I feel safe being alone in my bed, listening to the music not many people around me can relate to, learning SEO online and taking notes. No one would ask me to put down my earplug or nagging on what I cooked for dinner. No one would comment on how I chew and why I use fork to eat rice. No one would say ‘yes, you may’ or ‘no, you can’t’. I can live the way I always want to live. Period. I’m in my happy place. 


It might just me afraid of taking chances, of whatever joy and happiness that comes with it. I know very well that there will be other possibilities in one marriage. You can be happy and you can be sad. Married or unmarried, they will coexist. I’m saving myself from getting hurt, from anything that may intrude my sacred habits, while at the same time, I’m losing the chances of being a lifetime company of my lover, being each other’s life and death.

Marriage is one inevitable mandate in the society I live in. It would be my fault for not getting married or getting married late. People will frown at me. I’ll be the weirdness among all the normality. But, who cares? Let me be weird for a moment. Chances won’t wait or come twice but that’s what chance is all about.

Disclaimer: the images belong to We Heart It