26 and grateful: healthy, close to family, and still learning

When	August 26, 2026
Where	Jogja City Mall and Oseng Ndeso, with family
Mood	Grateful

Turning 26 does not feel loud. It feels steady, and that is exactly what I am grateful for.

I am healthy. I am close with my parents, not just in the same house but in the same rhythm. We talk, we eat together, we make time without needing a reason. At home, Casper and Hoki are part of that rhythm too. I can sit on the floor and play with them and the day feels lighter. In work, I keep going deeper into software engineering, and I am still tackling AI, one problem at a time. Some days it clicks, some days it humbles me, and both are good teachers.

I do not feel the need to buy expensive things to mark the moment. I do not want to be in the middle of attention either. What I enjoy is simpler: a calm day, good food, people I care about nearby, and the quiet satisfaction of learning something new. If no one is looking, I am still happy. That is how I know it is real.

The day started right at midnight. At 00.00 I held a small tart cake with Casper beside me. No big party, no noise, just a quiet start to being 26. He looked at the cake like it was his, and I let him believe it for a moment.

Later we went out as a family. We spent time at Jogja City Mall, nothing fancy, just together. Walking, talking, laughing, letting the hours pass without rushing them. Those unplanned hours are the ones I remember most. Not what we bought, but that we were there at all, in the same place, with nowhere else to be.

We also had a meal at Oseng Ndeso. I took a selfie with Mom there, and it is one of those photos that holds more than faces. It holds that we are still making time for each other, on purpose.

The food itself was worth remembering too. Simple, warm, the kind of meal that makes conversation last longer.

If I look back at 25, the lesson was to keep going. At 26, the lesson is to notice. To notice health while I have it, to notice family while they are near, to notice that playing with the cats is not a break from life but part of it, and to notice that understanding software engineering and AI is not a finish line but a daily practice.

I do not need a louder year. I need a truer one.

26 taught me this: enough is already a lot, and being grateful is how you notice it.