Divortiare and Twivortiare

"Mungkin benar apa yang dikatakan orang-orang. Opposite attracts, but two people who are so much alike are just like magnets with the same pole. Kesamaan itu justru menjadi pemecah, ibarat magnet berkutub sama yang akan saling tolak-menolak. Seperti Super man yang tidak akan pernah bisa berdekatan dengan kryptonite walaupun keduanya berasal dari planet yang sama. When togetherness and unification turn into destruction. Maybe it takes physical attraction, intellectual intercourse, a very happy mariage, then a cold, bitter ending to make us realize that we are really each other's kryptonite."

That was how I started to feel disturbed (in a positive way) by the book that Faela kindly gave me. Divortiare. It told me the struggle of one widow, that decided to divorce her husband after 2 years of marriage. Alexandra, a busy banker, was married to this cardiothoracic surgeon who is also busy like hell. They were trapped in the metropolitan with crazy working hours and traffic, with no time for each other. It then began to shake their vessel. From one fight to another, to the year when they barely spoke. So she gave up, feeling that she could never be his first priority nor attention. And the book spilled every detail about her struggle after the divorce. How she hardly opened her heart for anyone. How she, without even noticed, was still deeply in love with her ex-husband despite the grunts inside her heart. 

Which I found very intriguing, since I felt her devastation over my relationship with my dear heart. It is such a coincidental that Alex and Beno are like me and him in so many ways. The way we fight, the way we miss each other, the way we reconcile after a fight, and many other small details. Long story short, they loved each other badly, yet the differences they had, along with the egos built a wall around their heart, hindering them from admitting that they wanted to make efforts to save the relationship. They had 8 years of age gap between them too, by the way. And know what does it take?

"Older men tend to be more secure with themselves and their lives. Jadi nggak butuh eksis di mana gitu untuk merasa dia utuh."

or...

"Jadi hidupnya tenang. He knows what he wants and brings real meaning in his life, and that's all that he cares about. Nggak ribet."

Sounds a lot like someone I love?

Not only that, I was shocked by the words that her best friend, Wina, said to her when they were having a huge fight.

"That pretty much sounds like 'cinta mati' to me ;)".

or...

"If you look at it from a point of view that you're stuck with this guy forever, yeah it's kinda scary. But if you look at if from a point of view that you love this guy so much and he feels the same way, isn't that what everybody wants, Lex? To be stuck for good with the one love of their life? You wanna know something? Selama ini, tiap lo datang ke gue dengan cerita masalah lo dengan Beno, bahwa lo abis berantem, abis kabur-kaburan segala macem, sejujurnya gue nggak pernah terlalu khawatir. Deep down, I always knew that everything will be alright. No matter how much in trouble you both are with each other, somehow I knew that eventually everything will be alright. Gue orang luar dan gue aja bisa lihat bahwa apa yang lo punya sama Beno itu terlalu kuat untuk digoyahkan sama masalah apa pun yang lo berdua hadapi. Ujung-ujungnya lo berdua pasti balik lagi. Bukan gue yang ada di dalam hubungan lo berdua, dan gue bisa merasakan kuatnya ikatan di antara lo berdua itu, Lex. Masa lo sendiri nggak? I think I have said this to you before: what matters is that he loves you. And you love him. Fuck everything else."

Gosh, know you know how much I feel so 'jleb' reading it ? That quotes definitely sound like someone, right? (You know who you are).

Do you notice now how similar our story is, now? Of course there are differences : their backgrounds, status, and other things as well. But when I get to the second book, Twivortiare, I no longer can imagine how Ika Natassa, the author of this book, created all this. Because most of the situations she disclosed were seriously close to what I have now! They both finally got back together, remarried, and undertook their best efforts to stay together.

So yes, she had successfully attracted me that much with the metro pop story - a thing that I would not prefer these days - because she truly put everything into details, making the story even more alive. The way she brought everything very lightly, yet sweet and funny at the same time, drew me even nearer. Not to mention, each and every quotes left me in questions about my relationship. Here is another example I take from her second book (on Alexandra) :

"Marriage equals work. It doesn't just happen. There will never be anyone whom we can call a perfect match. Everybody's different. In dealing with differences, egos play a huge part. Orang yang sama persis sama kita aja pasti bisa jadi nyebelin, apalagi orang yang beda sama kita. Beno and I? 180 degrees difference. Tapi gue inget he once said to me, 'Kita nggak bisa maksain orang supaya sama kaya kita. Terima aja perbedaan itu sebagai perbedaan kepribadian.' Him: 'Asalkan perbedaan itu murni kepribadian aja dan nggak melanggar values kita, diterima aja, Lex. People are human, not some machine we can control... Main rulenya: jangan jadiin differences itu alasan untuk ngeluarin emosi dan starting a conflict'. "

Funny thing was, in Twivortiare, she only described the whole strory through tweets. Hundreds of pages, just the tweets of Alexandra's busy, yet romantic life. But she can still leave the spark on her readers to stay interested with the story. From the response I have read, most of the readers even think that every thing was real - that Alexandra and Beno are true characters in life. Her way of writing, not many people can do that, so, I am pretty sure Ika Natassa has her own magic to work on.

Whenever you can bewitch your readers about one story till they can sense a true person and even impersonate the character, for me, you do certainly have the skill. So, bravo, Ika Natassa. You seriously made me addicted to everything you wrote.

Thank you! And special thanks to Faelasufa :) I wish you all the best of luck wherever you are!

P.S. This is the picture of the book I read, along with the notes I put on them. You know now how deep it made me feel.