Traces Left Behind Along the Jakarta - Bandung Route
I. Melawai and the Passing Bus
Jakarta in the mid-90s felt incredibly loud for a 14-year-old kid who had just set foot in the city. Moving from the province meant I had to quickly adapt to the rhythm of this metropolis, including the time I officially became a junior high student in my white-and-blue uniform at SMP 56 Melawai.
Being a teenager, my hormones were all over the place. At that school, I randomly built up the courage to ask a girl out. Unfortunately, my first taste of bravery was instantly crushed by reality: I was rejected flat out. I can’t even remember her name today, probably because I buried that memory so fast out of sheer embarrassment.
But Melawai didn't let me drown in heartbreak. This city introduced me to Dinda.
My dynamic with Dinda didn't start with grand, poetic declarations of love. We were just two school kids brought together by the destiny of sharing the exact same bus route every single afternoon. Inside the sweltering, noisy city bus, surrounded by honking horns and the smell of exhaust fumes, Dinda and I always sat side by side. We talked about anything and everything—from strict teachers to whatever song was currently blasting on the radio. Dinda’s smile, framed against the rattling bus window, always managed to make the gridlocked commute feel short.
I thought this bus route would stay the same until we graduated. However, Jakarta always has a way of separating people without warning. One month, Dinda just stopped showing up at the bus stop. She vanished completely from our shared route, leaving me with conversations left hanging in mid-air.
II. The Bespectacled Girl Behind the Foundation Fence
High school moved at a much flatter pace. There weren't many waves, until a surprise came from the school next door. Since my school was under the same foundation umbrella as SMIP (the tourism vocational school), I frequently crossed paths with the students from there.
One of them was a girl with glasses whose house turned out to be not far from mine. Because we often walked the same path and kept running into each other, she somehow developed feelings for me. On a completely ordinary afternoon, she was actually the one who stopped me and confessed her feelings first. I was stunned. Unfortunately, my memory is playing tricks on me today—I can clearly picture the lenses of her glasses reflecting the late afternoon sun, but I've completely forgotten her name. I only remember the absurd moment of a high school guy standing frozen, getting asked out by a girl right near his own house.
III. The Romanticism of Blok M and the Ringing Home Phone
Entering my college years, my world completely shifted to Blok M. That was the golden era where a guy's confidence was tested by a piece of paper and a pen to ask for a girl's phone number. Hanging out, window shopping, introducing myself—Blok M was the center of our universe back then.
And among the many faces that came and went, there was Maria.
My connection with Maria was the kind of relationship that didn't need many explanations. Every time we met in Blok M, our fingers would lock together. We would walk down the sidewalks, passing cassette stores and the aroma of street food, completely oblivious to the world around us. The warmth of Maria’s hand and the atmosphere of Blok M during those college days felt straight-up magical. Fuh, thinking back to it now, the vibe still feels so real.
But my college stories didn't just stop at Blok M. There was this one girl who boldly handed me her phone number and told me to come over to her place. I remember her house perfectly, located near where I lived.
I went there expecting a casual visit, but the moment I sat down in her living room, she confessed her love to me on the spot! That unexpected event turned the following days into a literal telephone marathon. We talked on the phone every single day for hours, until the curly cord of the landline stretched out. It reached a point where the people at home lost their patience because the line was always busy, and I got chewed out big time. Funnily enough, after all that late-night phone madness, I was actually the one who pulled the brakes. "Let's just be friends for now," I told her back then. A pretty vintage ending.
IV. The Rules of the Game in the City of Flowers
After graduating from college, I officially put on a crisp shirt and stepped into the harsh reality of the working world. Destiny led me to relocate to Bandung. In this cool, romantic city, I met Raisa.
With Raisa, everything just clicked. She was a great companion to walk around with and a foodie partner who always knew the best spots to eat. We spent countless nights exploring the dimly lit streets of Bandung. I was comfortable, she was comfortable. However, a massive wall stood between us: office policy.
The company we worked for had incredibly strict regulations. Coworkers were strictly forbidden from dating; if caught, one of us would have to pack our bags and get fired. That was where our egos were truly tested. We were forced to suppress our feelings, hiding our closeness behind the mask of mere colleagues, just to protect our livelihood in a new city. The relationship slowly faded away behind the walls of the office cubicles.
V. The Last Chocolate on Saritem Street
A few years later, my career brought me back to Jakarta, working in the Tebet area. Yet, whether it was a lingering nostalgia for the Bandung atmosphere or something else, I started frequenting Saritem. That was where I met Ipung.
Ipung gradually transformed from just a regular contact into an absolute weekend routine. Every weekend, after being battered by work in Tebet, I would travel up to Bandung just to see her. Our bond was unique. I never showed up empty-handed; on several occasions, I deliberately brought her a box of chocolates. It was a sweet gesture that felt deeply contrasting in a place as rough as Saritem. Ipung always smiled whenever she received those chocolates, and for me, that was enough to make the exhausting Jakarta-Bandung commute worth it.
But the wheels of life keep turning. Those working days eventually came to an end. I left my job, my savings started dwindling, and economic reality began to tighten its grip around my neck.
Broke and cornered by circumstances, I made a drastic decision. I changed my phone number, cut off all bridges to the past, and closed that chapter tightly. I completely stopped seeing Ipung. That weekend box of chocolates officially became the final story of my long adventure.
Epilogue
Now, as I sit back and relax, those memories often return uninvited. From the school bus of SMP 56 Melawai, the sidewalks of Blok M with Maria, the office regulation dilemma with Raisa, to the dimly lit corners of Saritem with Ipung.
They are all puzzle pieces that shaped the person I am today. Those girls have all gone their separate ways, but their stories remain timeless, neatly stored inside my head as a memorabilia of my life's journey.
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