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