Until Forever?

5 June 2023

Ambitious, sincere, resourceful, passionate. While his siblings had fun and spent time together, Jason escaped to his own world in his room through music. Jason didn’t like the thought of constant fun; it drained him. Since adolescence, he found comfort through wearing his headphones and listening to his favorite musicians. He was considered the black sheep of the family, being the only one to pursue music outside classical and not choosing a classical instrument to learn.

His parents made him learn the grand piano, unknowingly feeding into his passion for making music. After saving up for 2 years, he bought his first electric keyboard where he learned to make music. His passion was all self-taught and hidden away from his strict parents. His music was electric, filling him with energy even when he was tired. Even though he loved music and found himself through the symphonies, he felt alone.

All his siblings followed in their parent’s footsteps, listening to every demand they give, even after their addiction started. Everyone else never grew a passion for music and split paths to careers far from it, even with years of musical knowledge gained from practice and countless lessons. But that was it. Lessons and practice. No passion, no love, no feeling. But because of his sibling’s weakness, he gained his strength, meeting his love, Cinta, after a school concert who shared a passion for music.

7 years of dating since they were 15, both slowly building a career for Jason to express his love for music to the world. The moment Jason knew he succeeded was when 100,000 sang along to his music during a concert while on tour in the US. After the final song, he called Cinta up to the stage, pulling out a ring to propose in front of hundreds of thousands of people. “Until forever?” He asked. “Until forever.” His life was like a dream.

But even with the perfect girl by his side, a great career, a supportive family, he still hides something only his family knows. Since he was 18, he started drinking his stress away. He would become irrational without it, making him verbally abusive and hard to control. But even though he knew Cinta since he was 15, he hid his drinking away from her. Even until he turned 26, he never told her or showed her how he acted when intoxicated.