Parade.

I haven't missed you in a loooong time.
Not the conscious, yearning, suffocating type anyways.
But I could never pass August unscathed.
& this morning I woke up & reached for my phone & started searching for videos of the parade.
I could say Merdeka is my favorite memory of you,
But honestly they are all my favorite.
& I'm not saying this because it's all I have of you now.
From the very start, from the first time I saw you, which I remember with such clarity it's mind boggling,
Before I knew who you really were & before you grew into who you'd mean to me,
I've always known you were made to be special compared to everyone else.
If I was any wiser I'd have known too that the special ones are always taken first.
So... Until the next Merdeka where I'd hopefully have mama to cry with me watching the parade,
& I'd stop feeling like I need to explain myself everytime lol.
& last but not least, a little reminder.
Dear future Hilyah,
For a good cry,
'Cemerlang, Gemilang, Terbilang'

Thankful.

Meeting school friends last weekend at a wedding made me reflect a lot these past few days.
Mainly on how I grew up telling everyone my ambition was to be a full-time housewife.
Yeap, totally living the dream now.
(Thank you Sarv, for remembering that about me & for enthusiastically shaking my husband hand while congratulating him for giving me the dream life I've always wanted)
I remember coming up with that answer because I hated being asked that question by teachers since standard one.
The first answer I ever thought of was to be a stewardess,
Because I thought they were pretty & got to travel the world & I had an aunt who's a stewardess.
It's also a fancy, very specific word like doctor or engineer or teacher that everyone seems to come up with with such passion.
Then I was told by my dad that it's not a good career choice, that they have to dress sexy & he didn't want his daughter to grow up that way.
So I switched to teacher because no one seems to question you too much on wanting to become a teacher.
Honestly, I've never grew up with a passion for one specific thing.
I knew you have to get good grades to get a job because you need money as an adult.
& 'jobs' intrigued me, going into the office & doing paperwork & getting paid every month.
It honestly didn't click until I was doing my diploma that these 'jobs' were all businesses.
Honestly, even the government.
Every single company is about generating a revenue.
& that's when I was so thankful my mother knew me well enough to egg me towards accountancy, which then led to finance.
But let's backtrack a little to high school when teachers start to demand a little bit more conviction behind these ambitions they keep on asking every year.
All I knew at that point was I wanted to grow into an adult.
Just to be cheeky I started making 'housewife' as my go to answer.
Yeah I got a lot of questioning on it,
But I'm Anak Bates so I pretty much got away with everything in high school lol.
The point is that, I've only just realized what I stand for in life.
I've never seen a specific career as a be all and end all.
Thanks to my parents, I got educated with the most versatile degree & can pretty much get hired in every single company that exists.
Personally I think I'm nailing the task of assisting my husband with his salary, investments, taxes, expenses & utilities.
I'm into this shit, I don't just own a degree in keeping an entity running on a daily, monthly, yearly basis, I've understood since forever this is how an adult should function lol.
& I feel like it's made me accepting to my roles in life too.
Like I'm totally content with staying at home with the kids because I can't picture it any other way.
I don't have regrets waking up every day thinking it's another day lost in not pursuing a career or earning my own paycheck.
I don't count the amount of money I could be making & lamenting over not owning a home.
(& to be perfectly honest I do not see owning a home as a black & white thing. It's just not the right time for us now, & I'm fine if I don't end up owning one ever. Because one, it's scary to make such an expensive & permanent decision that affects your whole entire life & I do not want to rush it & then be financially burdened by it, & two because if everyone buys multiple houses as an investment to rent it out, like what's so on trend right now, who's gonna rent them? We're in a renters market right now & I don't see it changing in a loooong time, I do not feel like I'm losing anything at all. I've been told a few times how a house is an investment which you can sell later on should you need money, & how renting is basically pouring money down the drain because you get nothing out of it at the end. But really, selling a house doesn't happen overnight. The process isn't cheap either. With ownership comes wear & tear & having to have money to fix it up. Then the yearly taxes, and maintenance fees if you choose to go the condo lifestyle, & not to mention you end up paying 200% the value of the house on the interest alone at the end of your mortgage. Plus if you think about it, isn't food pouring money down the drain too? You pay money in order to eat them then it turns to shit which you flush down the toilet so yeah. As a business student I accept the fact some things are just costs in life. The point is to keep these costs affordable according to your earnings every month)
So I'm just writing all of this down today as a reminder to myself to be as supportive to my kids in the future.
Yes, it's great if they find a passion & live on to make a fantastic career out of it,
But there's nothing wrong in just growing up to be an adult.
I should keep in mind to get to know them as well as my parents knew me,
& to give them enough knowledge so that they'll survive.
I know a lot of people who don't have the choice to live their life as freely as I do,
& I can't be thankful for my parents enough every day.
Aaaand yes of course I gotta thank my husband for excelling at being the sole breadwinner & supportive of the idea of me staying & home & still making allowances for sushi dates once in a while. (yes, I forgot to thank him & yes he told me to do it)