It is true that the essence of life is about the becoming. Reflecting on the words our friends and family specifically remember us saying at each stage though, I know I have become so much more. I remember a cousin once observed how truly in love I was with my boyfriend and then juxtaposed with another time, in my stop in Malaysia before coming over to London where Kak made an observation that she thought I no longer believed in Love. I was two years into my marriage then and heartbroken from the long distance I endured not long after we married. Kak knew me more from my Carrie Bradshaw-esque single girls era where I was fervently searching for real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love.
Looking at the snippets of social media I've shared since 2007 (Facebook) and 2010 (Instagram), the past ten years truly documented my becoming a woman. First a fun-seeking willing to try anything young woman in her early twenties. Just out of Uni, had my first taste of travel to Japan and Europe, earning enough in my bank account to purchase my first designer bag (my lust for Louis Vuitton back then was my biggest weakness and worse obsession in my life). I agonised over why he wouldn't say he loved me. Formulated theories over why he tortured me so and then threw it to the wind and went fine dining and fine wine tasting with friends before dancing/singing into the depths of the night.
In 2010, I went to America and got proposed to, after which I began this blog and thus began preparing myself for this rite of passage called Marriage. I thought I knew all about it and the kind of wife I would be, essentially a bigger, badder-arse version of the girlfriend I was, with full financial control over the household. Ah that was not to be so. I was repressed in a career that I loved, but didn't feel respected in, I flitted between the glamour of living a blog-worthy life and the realities of making a marriage work and how it doesn't include my girlfriends or my love of the culinary delights in top restaurants, not with Mr.HEA anyways. When we stripped it down with all our soul-searching, it didn't even include the house we thought would be our family home. It wasn't the city or the life we need to show we lived, it was just the two of us and how important it was that both of us were continuously seeking to work at our marriage and respect each others' dreams and talents.
So I began my thirties in Europe. A three star Michelin restaurant in Paris full of Epicurious delights heralded in a year of travel and rebuilding. We had pressed the reset button on our relationship and we thought we had the foundations of what truly mattered to us sorted. We thought then, perhaps it is time to start a family. I thought that was what was missing. I began the journey to Motherhood with a lot of high standards. Being away from my friends and family in a melting pot of a city, I could decide on any way I wanted to bring up my child without the pressures of society. The people I hung out with just assumed I was adopting the Malaysian Chinese/ Australian way if I signed up to something different.
But it was precisely this approach that wore me out as a mother. So many decisions and so many right answers but not knowing what was right for us became daunting and overwhleming. Coupled with post-natal hormones and sleep deprivation, I crumbled slowly and my relationship with Mr.HEA with it. We fought and cried so much all three of us that I swore we couldn't go on. He accused me of not being prepared for motherhood, of spoiling her and of not wanting to be a mother, but it isn't that. I know. I adore her, my little girl and now that she is more independent, I know I couldn't have given her a better start in her life with what we had. I know we have to live with the actions we've shown her and fighting and shouting perhaps shouldn't have happened, but I stand by not letting her cry it out, I stand by the baby led weaning and the breastfeeding on demand and not succumbing to the formula in her early months. I was there when she needed me. I gave her all I could. Sure I was broken from it all and not a very good wife after it, but I never regretted having her. Mr.HEA was wrong. What I was wrong about, was that I underestimated how much of a mental shift it was to be a mother compared to before. I shouldn't have aimed to be a super wife, because that created a man who couldn't anticipate my needs and then when the going got tough, I was left on my own to fend for it all. He watched from the sidelines, refusing to support my approaches because he thought I should have been more like his mother in my methods. And I hated. every. minute.
Rant aside, we've come out of that now. I think I am a stronger mother, I'd gone back to work and made it work being a working mother. I am lucky enough now to be in a challenging role career wise, but also comfortable to not need to climb further whilst I let my daughter's needs take the spotlight. Sure I lament not being able to check out the latest hotspots in town or having girly dates out, or last minute theatre plans or even just time to myself. I have come to terms with the fact that this is just how it is being a mum.
My life is behind the scenes now. Making life choices and teaching a little human being the skills she needs to navigate this world with. I have become more hippy than ever and less eager to chase after the latest fashion styles or lifestyle trends. Life as a working mum with one child is manageable and good. We even have travelled to six countries with her so far and I have done two trips aside on my own.
Will I become something else next? The next chapter is surely not far ahead. A soccer mum? Will I give up my job for my kids and become a SAHM? I don't know just yet. I just know never to say never. We are embarking upon a new life the end of this year. It should be familiar, but perhaps different challenges will present themselves too. Not perhaps. They definitely will. I am becoming the mother of two. The doors will close on this easy life I know now. And one day they might open again with homework and sport events in tow. But please I implore you to not give up on me and to not judge my weaknesses. I assure you we are well. And Hopeful for a better start to Dumpling #2's introduction to this world.
