I first stumbled upon AURORA’s music on YouTube, drawn in by a song called Runaway. Long before it took TikTok by storm, I had already fallen deep into the world of her debut album, All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend, playing it on repeat. Her voice was unlike anything I’d ever heard—otherworldly, raw, and enchanting.

But it wasn’t until I watched her live performance of Through the Eyes of a Child that I truly understood her magic. The way she poured her soul into every note left me in awe, and I wasn’t alone—comments flooded in, calling her an ethereal being, as if she had stepped straight out of another dimension.

A Soft Place to Fall

You might never understand why I love AURORA’s music so much.

Runaway isn’t just a song to me—it’s the echo of my own story, a life that always seems to be drifting. When she sings, “But no, take me home. Take me home where I belong,” it’s as if she’s speaking my truth, the endless cycle of rejection I’ve faced.

I was born in Indonesia, Batak by blood, Christian by faith, and—above all—a woman. That alone made me a minority in my own country.

Discrimination wasn’t something I learned about; it was something I lived.

As a child, I went to a Catholic school, a place meant for learning, yet it was literally walled off by a radical religious group. The rumor? That we had “misused” the school hall for worship. A ridiculous claim, yet the wall stood. But we didn’t stop. My friends and I walked the extra distance every day, because education mattered more than the obstacles they put in our way.

I lost my father when I was nine. My mother—suddenly a widow—raised me alone, and the world around us assumed the worst: no man in the house? Then surely, we wouldn’t go far. They didn’t know I relied only on my brain, pushing myself to earn scholarships, to secure my place in Indonesia’s best university. They didn’t know my mother was secretly Athena—the Goddess of War and Wisdom—strategic, strong, and fiercely determined.

Now, I live and work in Australia. But discrimination still lingers in the air. Some assume I’m here to “find an Australian soulmate” to secure my stay. Others believe immigrants only come to chase money, never to chase dreams. Their ignorance is outdated, yet somehow, still thriving.

Ironically, I left Indonesia because I loved it too much. I watched Ahok—a Chinese Indonesian politician—stand against corruption, speaking truth in a system built on lies. And I watched him be silenced. Jailed under the guise of blasphemy, simply for being too honest.

That was my wake-up call. If you want to change Indonesia, you don’t do it from within.

I once dreamed of becoming "something big" in a foreign country and using that influence to help Indonesia from the outside. But dreams fade when you face rejection at every turn. Even warriors grow tired. So I keep running, searching for a soft place to fall.

Running away is about survival. It’s the instinct to escape before the world crushes you completely. People think running means cowardice, but they don’t understand the exhaustion of fighting battles you never asked for. Running is what you do when you’ve been told, over and over again, that you don’t belong. It’s what happens when home feels more like a battlefield than a sanctuary. I have run—not because I wanted to, but because staying meant breaking.

Because when every door you knock on stays locked, when every path forward is barricaded with rejection, sometimes the only choice left is to turn around and run. Not toward something better, but away from what’s slowly consuming you.

So I keep running, searching for a soft place to fall.

For now, AURORA’s voice is the only place that feels like home. In her music, I find freedom—freedom from the chains of expectations, from the iron bars of rejection. I don’t know how long I’ll keep running. I haven’t given up, but I don’t want to fight too hard either. For now, I’ll let AURORA’s voice lift me up. Let her music carry me, even when reality feels unbearably heavy.

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