Make You Feel My Love

I realised today at dinner that Jon and I have been married for more than six months. I keep telling people I have just met that it's been about four. 

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It has been a nostalgic week and an emotional weekend, not least because (1) Jon and I watched Gene Simmon's daughter singing Make You Feel My Love on The X-Factor, (2) we finally got a copy of Jeff Chang's greatest hits (太想愛你 has been on repeat in the car and in my head), and (3) being greatly excited about Z's upcoming wedding, I finally got round to looking at our wedding pictures properly.   

If there is one thing I regret about my wedding day, it's that I didn't feel how I thought I would feel. People used to tell me they thought I would cry at my wedding. I certainly thought I would. I thought I would be overcome with feelings of love and joy and that I would be wholly focused on the fact that I was marrying the love of my life.  

But some of my clearest memories are of Lynda my make-up artist entreating Joseph our photographer-turned-friend to make sure I kept demure; of Bryan telling everyone to stand up and welcome the bride and take pictures as I walked down the aisle because it was the first (and perhaps last) time I would be in make-up, a dress and heels at the same time; going into a sudden panic when Be Thou My Vision was being sung during the service, wondering whether the version I had given Bryan and Bryna was the same as the one in the programmes. 

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Conversations I had during the week made me feel nostalgic in general for times past: the days when I first met Jon, the 初恋 feeling of having hours and months and years ahead together, being young and carefree and in love. That was how I thought I would feel on my wedding day. I even went so far as to think about how it might have been nice if I had met Jon when we were in junior college and we had a whole host of memories of late school night suppers and after school walks to look back on fondly. 

(Perish the thought, we would probably have busted our mobile phone allowances quarrelling.)

D Whatsapped me out of the blue last week to say that he went back to OGS for a seminar and that it brought back memories. I didn't think much of it until later that day, when I stepped out of the office into blazing sunlight and humidity. For some reason, maybe because it was so rare that we left work when the sun was still shining that brightly, it brought back memories of the hours we'd spent tabbing documents as pupils, the weeks where I saw him every single day, the time we had a Saturday night dinner of porridge and rojak at Da Lu Xia Mian at China Square (actually, to this day, I'm still not sure what that shopping centre is called), the times we had lunch together, sometimes up to three times a week and on consecutive days because we just didn't have enough energy to make plans with other people. 

I wonder whether I could have felt what I wanted to feel on my wedding day, if I had quit earlier. 

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This weekend is the first time since my wedding day that I have truly appreciated the meaning of loving Jon and what it means to be married. I've also finally come to the realisation that whatever has happened in the past with our previous relationships with other people, it doesn't matter as much as the present and the memories we can create now, driving around in our orange car singing along to the radio and staying up late watching television, talking nonsense and making stupid jokes. 

My maternal grandfather passed away recently, and his funeral brought back memories of how, the first night Jon and I stayed together, I lay awake watching him sleep and worried about what life would be like when he passed away. 

That's one thing marriage preparation class can't fully prepare you for. 

Whenever it's difficult to wake Jon up on weekend mornings, I hold a finger under his nose to make sure he's still breathing. 

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And so, happy more than six months anniversary to you Jon Lau, and here's to many more to come. 

Tales of Tai Tai Land

This afternoon at NTUC, I had another one of those encounters that made me think I should really go back to work soon. I was navigating my shopping cart along the crowded passageway towards the cashier – there were other customers pushing their carts in the opposite direction and some just strolling along in the way of those who have a lot of time – when an auntie, whom I did not see, chiong-ed in front of me. My cart nudged the plastic bag hanging off her elbow, which contained one of those plastic boxes which crackle loudly when you press them. You know the kind.

So there was a rather loud crackling sound, upon which the auntie turned not once but twice to glare at me (I’m sorry to say I glared back in a most un-Christian manner). Notwithstanding the glares exchanged, I am very humchee at heart and I took care to queue at a different cashier. Although I did watch her to see whether she would glare at me again (she didn’t, but she had a most displeased look on her face the whole time). And as I was waiting to pay I thought to myself: I never want to become one of those frowny aunties.

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It’s been a nice three months or so of setting up a home, and finding out new things about myself. For instance, I have found that I CAN and WILL withstand the wiles of uncles and aunties promoting all manner of household goods guaranteed to make your non-financial contributions to the household that much easier to carry out. I have survived NTUC on a Saturday afternoon and Giant on a public holiday (the latter experience in particular is not one I wish to repeat unless absolutely necessary), and I have found delight in other Korean dramas besides Secret Garden (although they can’t compare, not really).

I have also been vehemently denying that I am a tai tai, but since I now know when the tai tai-dom will come to an end, I have decided to embrace it. After all, chief among my activities is going to the gym during tai tai hours. It first struck me that I was in Tai Tai Land when I went for a mid-morning spinning class and I realised the ladies to my left and right were rather more well-coiffed than the usual after work crowd. Some even had light make-up on. For spin class!!! The experience which really takes the cake however was the time I noticed one woman doing her make-up as I went off to shower – and she was still doing her make-up when I came out.

Funnily enough, the two above encounters also sparked I should really go back to work soon feelings. And although people kept saying I should just enjoy my time in Tai Tai Land because I would never have so much time to myself again, I often felt that I was “too young” and should have been doing something “useful” and “earning money”, after all got law degree what. Not that cooking and cleaning is not useful, but again, you know what I mean.

During those moments of self-doubt, I thought about how God has blessed Jon and me greatly in these early months of marriage, and how they would not have been half as happy and peaceful if I had not been home to manage things. I am thankful for having had this time to think and reflect, apart from the noise of the world; God has been present when I take long meandering bus rides just because I can, when I sit in silence on the sofa wondering about life and things.

And I am assured that I did the right thing by leaving practice to go to Tai Tai Land, to “cook for my husband and clean my own house” (yes, I said that at my job interview). 

Time of Your Life

We met B over the Chinese New Year at Jon's paternal grandmother's house. I saw him as I walked through the gate, and quite literally skipped over to thank him for being one of the people who recommended I watch Secret Garden last year (the other person was my brother. With two boys telling me to watch it, I knew it had to be good). Because the idea of it is so utterly frivolous, and yet because it is the truth, I like telling people that watching Secret Garden marked a major turning point in my life.

Well, that major turning point culminated in my tendering my resignation last Wednesday.

I never thought, when I started posting random office anecdotes two years ago, that I'd be posting about this so soon. That's life for you I guess: It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right; I hope you had the time of your life. My taste in music has changed over the years, it's funny thinking how at 13 I thought I would be into Green Day forever. That was a really good song the lyrics of which still hold true today.

Last night, while waiting for Jon to be done with work, I joined D2 and K in D1's room to just hang around. Our being together reminded me of why I had been so enamoured with private practice at first. It wasn't what we talked about, really; it was looking at the files in D1's room, the open window on his computer with an email he had to send on a Friday night after 6 p.m. You know. Things that pander to a workaholic's tendencies.

I've said before I didn't think the job was glamourous at all, which was why I liked it - but I've always felt there was a sort of "reverse glamour". The late nights, the caffeine fooling (and fuelling) you into thinking that you could maybe pull 3 to 4 a.m. days for a good long while yet; Barry the BlackBerry flashing red at all hours, the (misguided) feeling that you are young yet indispensable to the firm. The nice lunches and dinners when you luck out and work with (charming) bosses who bother to attempt to show their appreciation, even though they ask you the exact same questions which they did the last time you went out for lunch together.

D1 and D2 said, as have many others when I tell them I have resigned, Why quit, it's going to be like this you know. You will be alone at night at home because Jon will still have very bad hours.

I'd finally heard the lyrics of 天冷就回来 properly the Friday before Chinese New Year, and there was one poignant line which struck me: 天冷我想回家 年少已经不在, it's cold and I want to go home but youth is no longer there. I don't want to wake up five years later and wonder what happened to my life and wonder why I didn't make the choice earlier - because by then, it may be too late. I want to be able to clean my own house and prepare meals (famous last words). Want to be able, on Mondays, to turn off my computer when it's time to leave for BSF, want to wake up on Sundays and feel refreshed as I head to church and not like a wall of bricks has fallen on my head. Jon may not come home early everyday, but he has promised to try, and that is enough (although I don't think I've quite yet learnt how to put patience before disappointment (and sometimes unreasonableness, of course)). But we're getting there.

Resigning wasn't easy. Sometimes I'm afraid I will grow to resent Jon for being so supportive of and one of my main reasons for leaving. I'm also afraid that I will be totally and utterly sick of housework after less than a year of married life.

But hey, you never know till you've tried, right? And in the words of an A*mei song, 敢爱敢做的人超级精彩, those who dare to love and dare to do are absolutely marvellous (a biased translation).

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Thank You, God, for Your faithfulness these past two years.