Page 160: I Miss My Days as a (Full time) Journalist

Some say every picture has its own story. For those who don’t know the story behind picture above would say that it’s just a picture of three women had fun with an application, which gave them silly virtual hats. For me, well, it’s not that different actually, hehe. The additional story is that the picture was taken 2 years ago, when we were still journalists, unmarried, and lived in the same big chaotic city: Jakarta.

Yep, back then, three of us were journalists. Young journalists. The left one was an economic journalist, the one in the middle was a lifestyle/woman media journalist, and the right one (me) was an IT journalist. We weren’t that satisfied with our companies, three of the biggest media companies in Indonesia. So we decided to make some changes in our life, for a better future. Since then, here’s a quick recap of what happened with us:

- The left one got married and move to Surabaya, leave her career as journalist, now a mother of one daughter. Still blogging, loves cooking, and recently got interviewed by one of the biggest newspapers in Surabaya for an article about mothers that breastfeeding their kids but still fasting.

- The one in the middle now working as media relation staff, still unmarried, had pretty amazing love stories *this is not sarcasm, li. I really think that your love story was pretty amazing, please don’t hurt me if you read this*, dated few guys, fell in love and broken hearted. Still lives in Jakarta.

- Me? Now I’m working as digital media/ marketing and communication staff on a company based in Jakarta, still unmarried, fell in love but then failed on building a healthy relationship *twice*, but I’m sure I’ve moved on.

I’m not trying to analyze whether our life gotten worse or bad in this post, what I know is that we’re not in the same city, and we’re not journalists anymore. And o boy, I don’t know what bumped me in the head, but I miss those days when I was still a full time journalist (I’m still a freelance one, btw), when most of my friends also were, not just the two of them.

I miss gathering news, hunting pictures, traveling, and interviewing smart-interesting people. I miss those days when readers send me emails to give compliments or ask me anything related with my writings. Even as a writer in Seringai fanzine, High Octane, when their fans asked me about their schedule or simply told me that they like what they read on last issue. I miss people ask me almost about anything because they think I always had the answer, simply because I’m a journalist. I even miss my long tousled hair in that picture! I miss the day after deadline when we drank coffee in the morning and gossiping or shared everything that recently happened in our life, and then off to the office at 2PM. Yes! 2PM!

I miss talking about latest news and discussing with my boss about my questions for interview session I’ll have in the next day. I miss sharing facts and gossips about informants, about funny and silly things that happened during photo session or press conference. I miss free delicious meal and cute stuffs inside goodie bag. I miss free trip to other part of this country or Singapore, although I don’t love that country. I miss reviewing restaurants and interviewing chef about food when I was working in lifestyle magazine. I miss my boss raised his voice tone to remind me that I must gave him four more pages for upcoming issue immediately. I miss how my weight stuck in 43 kilos (no diet or exercise) because as a journalist I always moving and doing things and kept busy.

Hell no, I don’t miss the deadline. I don’t miss leaving office at 5AM and then have to be at the airport at 7 to take flight to other city/country and can't get some rest before I finish writing the freshest news I can get on that day.

To be honest, I’m not sure why I miss those things suddenly. Is it the job or the fact that I was younger when I had that job? Because maybe, just maybe, I simply miss my youth when I don’t have to face the fact that three years from now, I will be 30. Damn.