Today was another gentle step forward: I went out again, nothing fancy, just simple errands and a bit of fresh air. Funny how even the most ordinary routines can feel refreshing when you’re in the middle of recovery.
After lunch, my husband and mom came with me to Indosat. The mission is to downgrade my internet package. See, I still keep my very first number from 25 years ago, the one I got when I bought my very first cellphone. Back then, topping up credit felt like a luxury, and texting “where are you” took serious typing effort. Somehow, through all the changes (different phones, different life stages) I never let that number go. By now it feels less like a SIM card and more like a piece of my personal history.
These days, I hardly use it for data. Telkomsel has taken over as my daily driver. But still, I can’t bring myself to let go of that first number. Nostalgia is a stubborn thing, isn’t it? Some people keep old concert tickets; I keep an old phone number.
My husband drove, my mom pushed my wheelchair. We arrived to find the service center quiet, with no queue in sight. Bliss. I was helped right away by the same staff member who assisted me before, Mbak Aisyah. Done in minutes. Funny how recovery changes your barometer of achievement. Once it was presenting to a room full of audience; today it was surviving a phone plan adjustment without fainting. Both victories, just in different seasons of life.
The real highlight of the day, though, came later in the afternoon: watching Sore again. Yes, the same film I had already seen with my husband. This time we brought along my mom and my daughter. She had agreed over dinner earlier in the week, which surprised me, coz she rarely joins us for movies. That alone felt like a tiny miracle.
So there we were, the four of us, lined up in the darkened theater. For me, rewatching wasn’t just about the movie; it was about seeing it through their eyes. My daughter was drawn into the plot. Afterward she said she liked it because it wasn’t predictable. My mom, on the other hand, didn’t connect with it emotionally at all. And that was okay. Sometimes stories simply don’t land the same way.
Afterwards, we headed to the food court for dinner. I had been craving bakso Malang for days, and finally, my wish was granted. My hubby had kebab, my daughter ordered steak, my mom picked her usual comfort food: kwetiaw, and together we unpacked our interpretations of the film between bites.
I shared my take: that Jo had actually died, and the film was Sore’s dream, stitched together from Jo’s diary flashbacks in Antarctica. My husband and daughter completely disagreed. To them, Jo survived, changed his lifestyle, and eventually united with Sore at the photo exhibition.
Same movie. Same scenes. Entirely different conclusions.
And isn’t that the beauty of good storytelling? It doesn’t trap you in a single meaning but gives you room to wrestle, to question, to argue lovingly over dinner. That’s what art does, it stirs something beyond itself. Maybe that’s why Sore has lasted so long in theaters: it continues to open conversations rather than close them.
For me, the film carried messages that felt deeply personal:
You cannot change someone else, not even the person you love most.
True change comes only when it rises from within.
Fear rarely transforms; love often does.
Marriage demands both love and commitment, and both must be tended like a garden.
Time is not our enemy, but the canvas where we wrestle, forgive, and grow.
Hatred binds us; forgiveness frees us.
Sometimes, giving space (to ourselves and to our partners) creates the very perspective we need.
On the way home, I thought about the strangeness of seeing the same film twice. The plot hadn’t changed. The characters hadn’t changed. But I had changed. My physical state, my company, my readiness to notice details I missed before; all of these shifted the experience. Life is like that. Days seem repetitive (wake, eat, work, rest) but if we’re attentive, each cycle reveals new layers.
Kahlil Gibran once wrote, “The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.” Sometimes it takes a story, or even just a second viewing of that story, to express truths we’ve been circling but couldn’t quite name. That we cannot hold time still. That love is both fragile and resilient. That forgiveness is oxygen.
And perhaps that’s why recovery itself feels like rewatching a familiar film. Each day, the same routines: take medicine, rest, eat, repeat. But each day also brings a new detail: a better digestion process, a conversation with family, the quiet joy of being outside again. Healing, too, is an art of noticing.
So go watch that film again. Reread that book you loved ten years ago. Walk the same route you’ve walked a hundred times. But this time, really look. Chances are, you’ll see something new. Not only in the story, but in yourself.
Because life, much like a good movie, isn’t meant to be rushed through once and forgotten. It deserves to be experienced slowly, more than once, with fresh eyes and an open heart.
Love,
Nuniek Tirta
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