Exactly a year ago, my sweet friend, who is about to be married in less than a fortnight, sent me this message:
Thank you for the testimony, and may it continue to ring true because we all know I have a lot of work to do to become the woman God intended me to be!
How do friendships fall apart? Do we simply stop communicating? How do the people you spend most of your waking hours with suddenly become strangers or acquaintances at best?
I’ve lost some friends and too many have become acquaintances. Some friendships I take full responsibility for its dissolution. I made the choice to pull back and severe ties. But others, it just feels as though it had ran its natural course and met its demise.
I’ve spent most of my adult life living overseas. For awhile I kept in touch with friends from way back. I made an effort to reach out to friends I had lost contact with for a brief period via emails. Facebook came to be later on. Is that a giveaway of how old I am?
I wasn’t away for long when I returned for the summer. I met up with long time friends but while I went home with a belly full of laughter, I realised the one year away had matured me. My friends and I may have a good time gossiping about people from school but when it came to talking about life, I realised we were on different planets.
My mindset was no longer that of a sheltered pampered middle child. I hadn’t seen the world, but I had a better grasp of it. I hadn’t been through tremendous heartbreak but I had learned to be strong on my own.
My friends on the other hand might have a colourful stamp-filled passport but their eyes were not opened. Overseas trips were luxury holidays paid for, if not subsidised by daddy dearest. They didn’t see Paris. They saw Louis Vuitton.
Sure, I was still living off my parents, in a big house they bought for my sister and I to live while we were at university. My parents paid the school fees, for the car, air tickets and holidays.
The difference was that they made us responsible for the house and garden. We did our own groceries, laundry and housekeeping. We were our own handyman. We grew self-reliant.
My friends on the other hand, were still being sheltered from the world. They saw the romanticised white Christmas. I lived a hazardous, ploughing snowy winter. They took photos of manicured tulip lawns. I mowed the lawn and yanked those dank dandelions.
It’s okay if we don’t share the same experiences or the same world view. We can still be friends, if we are still able to connect. But for me, a friendship has ran its course when I no longer feel the ability to share any pertinent information with the other person.
A recent ordeal has got me thinking once again about existing friendships. We’re all at different stages in life now. While they’re planning a girls night out in town, I’m looking forward to putting my feet up and cuddling with my husband. While I have oscillating brief flirtations and obsessions with material goods, I’ve a greater obsession with living a quality, carefree, natural and Christ-centred life with my little family.
Perspectives have changed my priorities. I’m thankful for the friends I’m still able to share non-picture perfect lives with, despite our different perspective and priorities. But for some, I can’t help but feel their time is running out.
Why do bad things happen to good people? When misfortune happens, I think to myself, “It should have happened to me.” “This should have been my punishment.”
And in a way, I guess it has happened to me. This is my punishment… Because there’s no greater pain than to watch the one you love suffer.
I just wish the innocent is left out of my punishment. I can do with the scarring brought upon by the cross but it pains me so to see the better person being reduced because of me. Is this what being each other’s prayer warrior entails?
Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to your holy will, which is love and mercy itself. (Prayer to the eternal God of endless mercy.)
After a while, you just stop questioning. You just want everything to be okay and together you’ll move on.
Thank you St Jude Thaddeus for your intercession.
While I complained about couple time being taken away even on the weekends, I’ve overlooked the many blessings we received in the short span of time we did have together.
As the sun took a bow that day, Eli asked if I would like to go shopping. I never say no to shopping, so I got changed and applied war paint… In the meantime, the husband put a call to our priest from Vancouver who is in town for the month, and they made plans for Sunday.
We got out of the house in an hour and traffic was kind of heavy – as is expected of traffic in this country, and in particular on a beautiful spring evening. We got to the mall at about 7pm and were told it’s free parking for the first three hours. I thought, “Wow, perfect. The stores close at 10pm anyway!”
Providence #1: Free parking!
We walked around a little bit, I checked out what I had intended to check. And decided to satisfy our desire for “salty” food with sushi! As always, it’s unagi, sashimi and a couple of rolls for us to share. When the unagi appeared, we were super disappointed that it was only three slivers, especially because the picture showed a much larger portion! We expressed our surprise and, to our surprise, the chef threw in another three slivers on the house!
Providence #2: Free unagi!
For dessert, the husband bought me frozen yoghurt – something I’ve been craving for, for a long long time! The thing is, it has been a long long time since we last went to Pinkberry, so we doubled checked on the pricing. Four toppings for the set price or a dollar per item.
I merrily picked chocolate flavoured yoghurt ice cream and four toppings. Went to checkout and the price was a bit higher than I had expected. The lady explained that it’s because I had chosen a “luxe” topping and so the set price does not apply. She then said she could make me a new cup and I get to pick another four non-luxe toppings.
Uhh, mind you, the lack of impulse control in me had already eaten quite a bit of the toppings and yoghurt!
How does it make any economic sense for her to dump this cup that I’ve already started eating, and replace with a new cup? How about she just charge me the set price for four toppings?
Eventually, the lady who served us came over and charged us even less than the set price.
Providence #3: Discounted luxe frozen yoghurt!
Then we (okay, I) decided to do some “market research” on items we’ll need to buy in the coming months. We chatted with the saleslady, got the information we needed and were about to walk off when she offered to give me a goodie bag! All I had to do was provide contact details! They didn’t even ask for my age! Whoopie! In the goodie bag were some pretty useful stuff! None of those “sample-sized” rubbish!
Providence #4: Fantastic goodie bag!
Then the husband and I enjoyed a nice late night drive home where we stayed up late to watch a movie – something we’ve not done in a long time.
As I waited for slumber to engulf me last night, I played a few sets of Hearts on the phone. And it made me miss the last quarter of 2012.
Eli had taught me the game during our travels last winter. He’s really good at the game while I used to think the computer was screwed up because I clearly scored the highest with a perfect hundred and yet it said I lost.
Lately, with the daily drone of life starting to get to us, I kind of want to extradite us from the long hours of work and dealing with contractors, and just be with each other. Be a little more carefree.
I’m not asking for a repeat of last year’s travels because that is just too much but I’d really love to be able to do something to relieve the husband from everything he has to deal with. Work. House. School. Me.
The me bit, I can deal with; complain less, cooperate more. But for everything else, I’d really have to hide him away! I mean, we can’t even do tea on the weekend without him being called away!
In September last year, we left everything and set up base in a studio apartment that was minimally furnished. From there we played tourists on some days and lived like locals on others. It was just the two of us, doing everything together and co-existing in a tiny space.
The trip did wonders for our relationship.
We really reconnected with each other, and took care of each other. There was no distraction. No phone calls and no knocks on the door.
It sounds antisocial but our infant marriage needed that. Yup, we’re literally newlyweds but the daily grind of long work hours followed by dealing with contractors and school projects got to us. The cycle does not let up even on weekends.
Now that eloping isn’t an option, the husband has been super sweet at carving out time for us. Weekday movie night. Midweek dinner date. Buying my favourite breakfast while I keep snoozing on Saturday. Weekend high tea. Dinner by the sea. Shopping sprees.
But what can I do for him?
This weekend I’m especially thankful my husband is not a doctor. With all respect for doctors and their family, I don’t know if it’s worth the money if he’s always being called away.
Every week I look forward to the weekend because it’s the two days I (naively assume I) get the husband for 48 hours. While 48 hours is idealistic what with the construction project we’ve presently got going on, the husband does come in every now and again to check on me, and makes the effort to paint the town red with me in the evenings.
But this weekend! After a crazy day of supervising the workers and running around, we went out for afternoon tea of traditional Lebanese sweets. Two mouthfuls in and the husband gets a call. We had to pack our food to go.
Same story Sunday. My patience is really running thin!
We’ve found our new favourite restaurant to throw a grand party. But we’re going to need deep pockets for it. Or you know what, we can just keep it for our casual date nights!
Babel in Dbayeh, Lebanon is quite the exceptional restaurant. Set in a Babylonian temple, it serves traditional Lebanese cuisine, which really doesn’t seem too fancy on the menu but be prepared to get blown away by the flavour. Exceptional. Phenomenal. Kteer taibeen.
Almonds, mixed nuts and pita bread with olive distracted me while we waited for our order. Eli had to remind me to slow down on the bread lest I’m unable to finish the country potatoes (which is atas for potato wedges), fattat qawarma (chickpeas, garlic yoghurt, lamb, eggplant and pine nuts), and lamb ribs, I ordered.
I’ll make a terrible food blogger because evidently, only haphazard photographs of the first few plates were taken. After that I was too busy and my hands dirty with lamb ribs to take any more photographs. I guess we’ll have to go back there again! But I can’t promise any better photographs because the lighting in there really isn’t great for photos but score in ambiance and deliciousness.
Service was excellent, and I suppose expected of a high end restaurant. I’ll always joke and ask if they’re going to spoon feed me, as the servers at L’ancre were so close to!
Babel is hard to miss as you’re driving along the highway headed to Jbeil from Beirut. It’s marked by that tall revolving sign that reads “Babel” in Arabic!
This man just makes me fall head over heels for him over and over again! My heart felt such utter tenderness as I watched the husband – who isn’t a fan of dogs because of prior bad experiences – hand feed a stray dog.
God works in marvellous ways and with this experience, the husband’s most recent memory of a dog is a positive one! Except that the dog in its excitement wiped some mud on the husband’s jeans – and boy, the only time his jeans should be so dirty is when he went on bended knees to ask me to be his wife!
I’ve been thinking about how chancing upon the photo of the husband and his ex-girlfriend made me feel and why. I’m not obsessing over the existence of the photo, but I’d like to know why I felt the way I did and is there a better way to deal with it.
The general public seem to have differing opinions about why the photograph was still in existence, and mixed suggestions on what should have been done with the photo.
I’ve come to realise that the photo meant nothing. It is still around because it is in an album that contains photographs of other people and moments in his life more than a decade ago. He probably didn’t even realise it was there, until I found it.
I was probably upset because of his nonchalant approach to its existence. On hindsight, if he had reacted a different way, such as getting antsy and defensive, that would have been an indication that he had something to hide.
When he saw how upset I was, he quietly took the photo, tore it and threw it away, then said to me: “There, no more photo.” He was calm throughout it all, while I continued to pretend to be busy, focusing on my computer screen instead of looking at him.
Someone commented that when she found photos of her husband and his ex, she got so upset she tore up the photos. And he got upset that she did because he would have done so himself.
As for me, I didn’t want to do anything about the photo, mainly because I was rather calm at that time. Later on, I wanted to see his reaction to it, what he’d do and his response to how the photo made me feel.
More than one person said while the photo doesn’t mean anything, it might have been kept for keepsakes – memories of the adventures/time of his life – and should not have been destroyed.
Well, I didn’t make him destroy them but if he hadn’t done what he did, I might feel worse because now he knows the photo exists, how it made me feel, and chose to keep it… And knows exactly where it is.
Plus, aren’t we making new memories everyday? As the husband said: “Who cares about other past pictures that do not include us?”
I can’t deny any part of his life before he met me. I’m sure they shaped him to be who he is today in some way or other. She might be his very first girlfriend and they say you never forget your first, but that doesn’t matter because he chose to marry me. He pledged eternity to me, despite all my crazy.
I’ve a past too and while I never want to relive it (destroyed every photograph, every film negative and even diaries), I know it helped me become the person I am today with the capacity to love the way I do.
And what sweet rewarding love it is indeed!
Sometimes we need something to get us through a tedious day. Lately I’ve been feeling the need for some of the husband’s loud, alternative-type music. I’ve been trying to visualise where I last saw his CD pouch, and today I started going through some of our bags.
Then I chanced upon a photo album, more than a decade old and in it, amongst the many pictures of the husband and his friends, was one distinct picture of an ex-girlfriend.
I smiled to myself, closed the album and tucked it back into the bag.
But, I couldn’t resist texting the husband and telling him about my discovery. I told him not to worry about it and it’s up to him what he does with it. I think I held myself together pretty good.
Until I saw his face when he got home today and I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy (guess this shows I’m still crazy about this man!). So I chose to walk away and pretended to be busy.
WOAH! Look how far I’ve come! The old me would have gotten all obsessive, crazy and jealous, trying to “figure out” why does he still have a picture of his former flame. I’d probably have sent him a highly charged text message with all the elements of emotional blackmail.
How do I know how I would react? Because I’ve done that before.
The husband, then rather new boyfriend, was caught completely off-guard and in fact, did not know what I was going crazy about. The details are all hazy now but I sent him a series of text messages about how I was feeling, asking him all these questions about whether he really wanted to be with me, and if he really loved me, without telling him what invoked the emotions. He, who was at work, called me up immediately. Of course, I rejected his calls. He texted me. Then he called again, wanting to get home to see me. I told him, no that’s okay. Stay at work because I wanted to be alone anyway. I don’t even remember how we resolved it that day.
But I do remember kicking up another fuss about ex-girlfriends and keeping mementos of any kind – even if he seems completely unaware of them. Poor darling ended up deleting all the emails from before we met.
That, my friends, was how crazy possessive I was. Did I constantly feel insecure? No. Did he give me any reason to be insecure? No.
He was the perfect boyfriend who spent every waking hour possible with me. In my sista’s words: “Oh please… Your Eli is too busy with wanting to please you. Where got time and energy to look at another woman.”
He gives me access to his phone, social networks, bank accounts and emails. He never looked at another woman. In fact, I’m always nudging him to “look at that girl’s legs!” He doesn’t even pass any comments about pretty girls, whereas I find myself saying “That guy is good looking!” But when I dig out things from the past – nevermind that he doesn’t even remember their existence – I drive myself crazy with jealousy.
Did marriage give me some sort of confidence and security? Perhaps it did. Or perhaps I’ve just grown up a little bit more. Less of a girl and more of a confident woman. A woman who knows what she wants and what she deserves.
The husband tore up the photo in the end. But did it make me feel any less jealous? No, it didn’t. But this too, will pass because at the end of the day, I’m the one he comes home to. And at the end of life, it’s Jesus he has to report to.
In the meantime, my mantra will be: “I don’t care where you’ve been, what you’ve done, as long as you love me!” Yes, inspired by the Backstreet Boys! Oh sap.
