Something meant to be shared 真水无香

There are many major changes that have happened to me in the last year or so, they happened quite quickly one after the other. No matter how prepared I am, there are still some kinds of adjustments that made me feel a little lost…

At first, I thought I was going through some confidence issues, but after a while, I realized it is more complex than that! I found myself caught in between the lines:

Not too young yet not too old – on the superficial level, my age is not too young and not too old to have a family; what’s bothering me is mentally, where am I now?? I think I am still young, in heart at least. I used to like to think my life is ‘cool’, the truth is, ‘cool’ no longer describes where or who I am now. I have grown out it. So, if I am not cool, what do I want to be? As a matter of fact, I feel this was the end of the MY era. At the same time, I know this is not true, it is the BEGINING of an era – a different set of goals and priorities. Things that touched me are very different from before; the inspirations are very different than before too. To accept my age is easy, but to accept whatever happened in the past, that they are history is not an easy task. My life will never be the same. This is about being a woman and a person.  Not cool but cool-headed (沉着&涵养), Charming with sense of understanding and maturity (气质&韵味)，and wiser (智慧) ，these are the words that I want to be described by. I need to accept my age, and what my stage of life can offer.     

Self and family – I consider myself a family oriented person, which means I am ready to be. Family to me pretty much means letting go of my freedom and spontaneity. It isn’t easy. What is important to me now is stability and organizing. These values have dominated my current life and I feel .. bored and lifeless. What I need is to find is the right balance.

Necessary and unnecessary – necessary and unnecessary friendships, necessary and unnecessary social outings, necessary and unnecessary spending, necessary and unnecessary mistakes… all of this became a clear yet painful choice. This made me treasure more the friends I truly care and love. This made me more practical. This made me think twice before whatever I do. A good way to say it - I am responsible. A not so good way to say it - I am no longer brave.    

Long term and short term – I am good at short-term planning all of these times, and I am flexible. I used to hate long term planning; rather what guided me was just a very brief direction and a strong sense of faith. I survived, well, until now.  Short term planning isn’t good enough anymore; a vision isn’t good enough. Long term planning, on the other hand, is stressful and being flexible isn’t helping. It is more about discipline and a team work. Not Al’s greatest strengths, and that’s made things more difficult I’m afraid.

See, these are a hell of a lot of adjustments! How can I not be lost?!

        Today is Archie’s 6 months Birthday and I’ve been breastfeeding him in these last 6 months!

       This means over 180 nights of disturbed sleeps, over 1000 times of pumping (expressing milk), over 1500 times nappy change, endless battles with baby pooh, and only few beer and parties.

       I am very proud of myself.

Some people say that you will love your parents more after you have kids of your own. That didn’t happen to me. In fact, I have no shame in saying that I want to keep my parents involvement with Archie’s life to a minimum. Apart from feeling a little guilty about it, I ask myself why I should feel this way…

This is my moment of rebellion. I wasn’t allowed to rebel when I was a teenager.

There are lots of things that I wasn’t allowed to do when I was young

Not being allowed to have a sense of self – the way I’ve been brought up, sense of self equals to being selfish. Many things are based on how others will think or judge, I learnt how to satisfy others’ needs and curiosity, even sometimes that meant I had to ignore my own needs at a very young age. This has affected many aspects of my life, in a negative way; confidence, self identify and unnecessary sacrificing, etc.

Not being allowed to think out of the box – in other words, a lack of individuality, this might explain that why Chinese are so good at copying but can’t come out with something original. We are trained to think in line. We eat whatever we’ve been fed.  The creativity is long buried; the mind is forever closed.

Not allowed to self-praise – when I was young, I was always confused what was self appreciation and what was pride.  Instead, I learnt to be ashamed. Ashamed that I didn’t do well, ashamed of what I did well. Because a slight bit of pride meant I was taking others’ efforts to gain my own benefit, so I had to praise others even if I earned it.

Not allowed to speak my mind – I learnt what I meant to say not to say what I mean. I said what others wanted to hear not what I really thought.  

I spent a long time trying to figure this out; this self realization didn’t come easy. To no surprise, I’m strongly against these values. But to live against it is not easy too.  These are in my roots. But Archie, on the other hand, has a choice, as early as he realizes it.

Of course, there are also things that I learnt, that I wasn’t allowed in my younger years, that has benefited my life now and then –

Self discipline

Being strong and independent

Self protection and pride

Staying alive

See, I’ve gone through all of this searching and self-discovery, but a lot of them were not necessary, and avoidable. I guess that’s why I resent my parents involvement in rising up my children. They are still living in my past They ARE my past.

I don’t hate them for whatever mistakes they’ve made rising up me. I blame nobody. I’ve fixed all the ‘baggage’ from the past, I am strong enough to face my past and future and live the way I want to. I was re-born a long time ago.

Archie should start from where I am now, not where I was. Period.

     It has been a while…

     Went out with my guest from Couchsurfing and my usual gang to MOS for a night out!

     I absolutely loved the dancefloor and the music! Although I have lost a bit of my move on the dancefloor at first, it didn’t take me long to warm up after few glasses of beer! I danced my guts out!! WooHoo~~ Mummy needed it!!!

     p.s - Mummy also need to buy a good dance bra!
     pps - I gave a name to this new-age dance style that we saw on that night - the ‘disfunctional arm dance’! We laughed our tears out! Oh dear… these youngsters…hehe

My first flower from my husband since we married is made of paper.

Bitter: Made of paper people! Is that what happens when people married? They just became so lazy and cheap since it is already a done deal?? Damn. Where is all the romance gone??

Sweet: Paper flower will definitely last longer than real ones! Yes, he is all practical about it.. and I have to give him credit on the creativity there. Here you go.. present you my one and only paper flower from my loving husband..

Archie has got Rubella.

Each and everytime, when he is ill. I feel I am the most helpless person in the world.

Archie is and always will be part of me.

I know I haven’t changed any - when I was little, a teenager, a young woman to a mother, I remained who I am - the core ‘me’ is the same all these time and will be same as I grow older.

The career that I am in now, I didn’t find it, it found me.

Market Research is sub-class of social psychology.

I didn’t know it’d be this hard to find a good maid until now.

With a baby and working full time, I needed a helping hand for household stuff. After firing three maids on the roll, I started to think maybe the problem is me not them!

Have I asked for too much? The jobs that I expect them to do are the basics. Washing. Vacuuming. Simple cooking. I fired them not because they either can’t do this or that, I fired them because they simply don’t like that they do.

But, for a moment, I thought I am such a mean person. I don’t enjoy firing people, I’d like to think I give people a fair chance. My patience can only reach a certain limit when I’m dealing with not so bright people.

I guess what I am trying to say is – this whole experience has made me feel bad about myself – i realize my ‘niceness’ can be selective.

And I ask myself, do I want to be nice to everyone? No. I am not Al.

 I want to be fair. So, I called up one of the three maids to apologize my impatience-ness. As a result, she wasn’t clever enough to understand what I was apologizing for.

Yes, it might sound wired to call up the mail that I just fired. But at least I feel better.

I just need a good helping hand!