d_Lady’s

This festive season as I celebrate Aidilfitri with my two sons and my family in kampong, it made me realized how drifted apart I am from my siblings. We have nothing in common now. When we were younger, during our childhood, we were so close to each other. We’d go anywhere together – school, religious class, swimming, playing in the yard. My childhood was never filled with luxury. We basically had to share everything among us. I come from a large family, half a dozen siblings to be exact. Being the eldest of half a dozen who are all parted by a year or two age gap was never easy. Imagine this, at the age of eight, I already had 5 younger brothers and sisters to look after. We never had the chance to consume those merchandises with famous label on. Even if we did have one, it would be hand-me-downs from our neighbours or relatives who have sense of empathy for us.

During this raya, I asked my mom why she chose to have quite a number of children. (I’m talking about my time, the beginning of the 20^th century when most parents chose to have maximum of four children, compared to my parents’ generation when it wasn’t awkward to have large family members.) It wasn’t the first time I asked my mom that question. As far as I can remember, I’d asked her once when I was a little girl. I asked her back then, why she didn’t stop having anymore children after having me, my younger sister and my younger brother. She didn’t respond to it. Now that I’m married and had my own children, I asked her again. But this time, she provided the answer. She told me that it was my father’s choice. My father loved having a lot of children. I guess, he was influenced by the way he was brought up. My father is the fifth from eleven siblings. My mom said it was also because she was sick back then. She had this post-natal disease which is better known as meroyan among the Malays. A friend of my father told him that women with this disease could be cured by having more children. So, they ended up having six children within ten years of marriage.

With the not-so-wonderful childhood memories at the back of my head, with God will, if possible I’m only willing to have a maximum of four children. I want my children to have the best opportunity in their life. I don’t want my kids to experience the same thing that I went through when I was at their age. I must confess that when I a girl, I was sometimes embarrassed when my so-called-friends learnt about the number of siblings that I have because most of them would only have four siblings, the most. Or even if they have more than four siblings, they aren’t the eldest. It seemed like a burden for me to look after my younger siblings when the rest of the kids my age would happily play without their siblings clinging on to them.

It was good though to have a large family, hari raya is always merrier when all of us gather at my parents’ place. The ketupat, redang and kueh are just enough to feed us all. My mom would have to cook extra if my parents planned to invite people for a raya open house. Now that my siblings and I are all grown-ups, we are leading our own lives; we started to take our different paths. And that difference has parted us. We never see eye to eye like we used to. The longest conversation that I have with my siblings nowadays is usually less than 10 minutes. Years ago, when we were younger, we could spend the whole night talking about anything and everything. God, I really miss those good old days. With my hubby being away, I really need a friend to talk to.

I never actually had much friends. My mom wouldn’t let me be close to any of my classmates or schoolmates. That’s why I’m bad at keeping friends. I’d let them loose. I’d sometimes easily chase them away and hurt their feelings with my blatant comments. Whenever I move to a new school, I’d make new friends. I’d abandon those good old ones. Now that my hubby is far away from home, working in a foreign land, I need to gather all my old girlfriends, keep a close contact with them and stay in touch with them all the time. Believe it or not, when I was having my hard time coping with the new environment without my hubby around, my good old girlfriends from college offered me comforting words to lift up my broken spirit. I guess my mom was wrong about having good friends. They’ll always be there when I was in dire needs of a friend. To all my girlfriends, ‘selamat hari raya aidilfitri, maaf zahir batin.’ Thanks for all your support. I couldn’t have made it without you gals.

Last night during one of my business classes, a classmate said a remark that really alarmed me and made me realize something; something that I’ve long forgotten. For as long as I can remember I’ve been living up mylife fulfilling other people’s expectation. Before I was married, I’d devoted mylife trying to realize hopes and dreams of my parents, siblings, teachers, friends, foes, acquaintances. Once I tried the knot, it was for my dearest hubby, and when I started having my own family, my devotion shifted to my hubby and my children.

I always thought once I enroll for the master’s program I’ll be able to live up myself to my expectation, to realize what I always dreamt of. Signing up for the course was something that I always wanted to do and the decision made wasn’t influenced by anyone else but me. I always thought that the way I study, work on the individual assignments and whatever tasks required to help me pass the exams wouldn’t matter to anyone. It’s quite obvious that the individual assignments wouldn’t affect anybody else in the class, it wouldn’t affect their final grades either directly or indirectly. So, why would anyone care if I look sloppy in their eyes? Why would it even matter to them if I always turn up late for class? Why would it even matter if I seem messy and unorganized most of the times even after I quit my job? It’s not like they helped pay for my study fees. It really hurt to know that those in my class actually put that remark on me. Have they even wondered the kind of things that I’ve to deal with everyday? Yeah, I did quit my job so that I could attend to my kids and focus on my studies. But those aren’t the only tasks that I’ve to complete. Being a fulltime mom without a hubby or a maid to help around ain’t that easy at all. It’s true that I am no longer loaded with office work but now that my ‘hyperactive’ kids are most of the times at home, I’d to spend extra time doing house chores.

Sometimes I just got sick of living up to other people’s expectation. Most of the times, I pretended as if their remarks don’t really matter but once in a while it made me cry. That cynical remark was one of the contributing factors to my resignation. I remembered there was one time when I was still working, it was a couple of weeks after my hubby’s departure to Manchester; I couldn’t adhere to their schedule as I was still in the adaption process. It was hard to juggle between my kids, household, work, study and almost every other thing in the family which used to be my hubby’s responsibilities; all at a time. I was unable to complete a task within the period of time given. Neither of them offered a helping hand nor a listening ear; all they cared about was the task completion. It left me crying all night long cause I thought that I’ve made some friends in the class. But I guess I was wrong. Those people are nothing but acquaintances or if I’m lucky enough, friends by the street. May be I should just stick to my principle when my hubby and I were newlyweds: “Never give a damn about what others’ think. All that matters are having my loved ones who love me the way I am”.

At 1 pm sharp on Sept 1st 2006, I’m officially a full-time mom to my 2 sons and student at the graduate school of management. It was the moment I’ve been waiting for the past 1.5 year, to put a stop to the endless hours of juggling between the different responsibilities that I had to play as a mother, employee, student and daughter all at one. I’d consider myself fortunate for having a loving, and caring hubby who understands my need to quit from work and focus on my other responsibilities that need more attention like being attentive mother and student.

I’v always wanted to quit ever since I registered for the masters program at GSM. However my family’s financial portfolio didn’t permit me to do so. Praise be to God, my hubby finally agreed to let me off from work.

My last day at work wasn’t that joyous and memorable like other ex-colleagues who left the company about a week or weeks before I did. They got to spend their last minutes at the office with the so-called acquaintances-turn-friend having lunch, exchanging gifts and taking photos together. What did I do during my last few hours at the office? I was busy clearing a product. Nobody walked me out of the office. But, who was I to blame others for not doing so? I was just another name that they came across in the Lotus Notes once a while to query for reporters or to inform about occupying a printer.

Frankly, I was never good at making friends. I thought that when I joined the office, it’d be like the other organizations that I worked with. I’d only meet new colleagues who by fortunate would only turn to acquaintances nothing more than that. I guess I was wrong; there was someone there who then became good friend of mine. She was always there for me when the rest of them walked away from me, when the rest of the crowd decided to leave me just because of my blatant criticisms. She’s none other than my fashion guru-cum stylist; Yoe. Thank you for being a good friend, for lending me a shoulder to cry on, for listening to my whining. I couldn’t have made my 1.5 year there without you. Life at work was livelier and more happening with you around. There was always gossfile that we’d share every now and then.

I’m sorry that I’ve been very busy lately with my studies (not to mention my burdening responsibilities since my hubby left for UK) that I couldn’t accompany you to many carnival sales events. Not to worry, for the next carnival sale, you’d be the first person to keep me company if I ever need to do some shopping. Too bad I didn’t get to say goodbye to you on my last day at work as you were away on Merdeka leave. Yoe, thanks for being such a good friend. I do hope that you’ll be married ot your prince ‘charming’ someday. Do invite me to your big day, k

p/s: you were rite about my nick that you gave, I prefer people calling me ‘D’