I clearly remember that it was about an hour and thirty minutes after I returned from a long lunch out of the office. Everyone was busy at their cubicle ; typing, calling or answering phones, chatting with their neighbors, or simply staring at the monitor (as some of them are finance persons… doing what they called as reconciliation some numbers for sure). And me, I was answering some e-mails I needed to answer the morning before. While drinking my 4th glass of water for the day.
Then suddenly someone yelled, ‘its shaking, it s shaking…” while at the same time she rushed to the exit door, followed by all the staff. I stood up and can really feel that the 4th floor of that Research Institute was a bit shaking. It felt like you are standing in a cable car while the car was about to go. You can feel it slightly like you can’t trust the floor you have been standing and working for all these months and weeks. Then I realize that that was it. On my way following the crowd I can barely see the water in the dispenser make a wave-liked movement. And the walk I did was not steady until I reached the door to the exit and rushed outside.
Out there, everyone is already crowded in awe. Looking up to the sky and every corner of the outside building, wondering what will happen next. Half of the more than 100 people there were making phone calls. Some do the talk, some showing frustrating face knowing that there’s no connection.
That was my first real life earth quake experience since I was born. Boy… I must say that it was not fun at all.
Then today, when I put this article in the text, I can vividly recall what I had weeks ago when a friend of mine unofficially ‘announce’ her resignation plan. Though I am a calm type of person, in which from my face you won’t see anything change, yet within me I felt like standing on the floor which is shaking. After months of ‘being’ with her in all the moments; travelling, events, meetings, and sharing ideas, world knows that the time tells it all. All through the time I learned a lot. I experience many. I had it impartially.
Well, life is about coming and going. One goes, other comes. Change happens every time. I learn that to stay up is to adjust yourself to the ever changing life.
Jakarta, 3 September 2009
