So funny though. Job was sent off for printing last Friday and today's already Thursday the week after – meaning, 6 days past job completion. Didn't follow up on payment and had to be chased for the invoice lagi. 😳😅 So out of it, man. Just happy to work and glad to be writing again. Really siao liao this time. HAHA. 😂 Thank goodness the GM is a kawan so tak kena makan. 🙏
Artist: Sinéad O'Connor
Song
Title: Nothing Compares 2U
It's been seven hours and fifteen days
Since you took your love away
I go out every night and sleep all day
Since you took your love away
Since you been gone I can do whatever I want
I can see whomever I choose
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant
But nothing
I said nothing can take away these blues
'Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
It's been so lonely without you here
Like a bird without a song
Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling
Tell me, baby, where did I go wrong
I could put my arms around every boy I see
But they'd only remind me of you
I went to the doctor and guess what he told me?
Guess what he told me?
He said girl you better try to have fun
No matter what you do, but he's a fool
'Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
All the flowers that you planted, Mama
In the back yard
All died when you went away
I know that living with you, baby, was sometimes hard
But I'm willing to give it another try
'Cause nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
Nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
Nothing compares
Nothing compares to you
Heard this song on the radio and suddenly felt reminiscent of my late nights in advertising. I smiled and my heart warmed at the memory. Just the handful of us... working in the dead of the night... having quiet discussions... typing and clicking frantically on our keyboards, mouses and laptops... and that one colleague who would always play this song whenever Emo Hour hit. Haha. Oh, the feels! I remember it like it was yesterday – the good old days of good times past. ☺️
"How apt," I think now, when I bumped into an ex-colleague while waiting for the lift at SIBKL today. I didn't even know we were in the same church! We weren't all that close before but today, I felt oddly excited to see her after such a long while. I felt a connection. A bond that didn't stem from sisterhood or friendship. No, it was passion – a passion for writing. Suddenly, it dawned upon me and I realised...
...that prayer moves the hands of God
and miracles happen when you least expect it.
I started working on a freelance copywriting job last week. And in hindsight, I realise now that how it happened could only have been possible through God's divine intervention. You see, I had shared with a couple of ladies in my cell prayer group the following message on 12 August 2018 – "...for me to find joy in being a housewife because I find that I miss working a lot lately. I miss my independence and the satisfaction of having a career and a paycheck."
Here's a timeline of everything
that happened thereafter.
12 AUGUST 2018 – Prayer request sent to Faithful Friends' Ladies Club Prayer Group.
13 AUGUST 2018 – Prayed for via WhatsApp.
24 AUGUST 2018 – Ex-partner at MCKL shoots me a text asking if I still do freelance work (I haven't heard from him in YEARS) and we set an appointment for a briefing.
6 SEPTEMBER 2018 – Briefing done and dusted. And so, work begins.
And with that, my prayer
was sent and answered in 25 days.
It's been 10 days since the day and I feel motivated. Driven. Purposeful. Thankful. Prior to this, I had begun to feel like the days were just beginning to blend into each other. The humdrum of Mommy life is as boring to me as it is tiring. Having said that, I enjoy the time I get to spend with the boys and I like it when we enjoy each others' company. But I don't enjoy the teaching and lecturing and intense eyeballing and threatening in order for anything to get done. 😅
I perpetually feel swamped and overwhelmed as a mom. But I also feel purposeless. Like my life has lost its meaning. This incongruity between what I want to do, and what I am doing is slowly causing me more and more cognitive dissonance, which then, ultimately results in a growing measure of unhappiness and dissatisfaction within me. And we all know the two rules of having a happy family, right? 😏
RULE #1: Happy wife, happy life.
RULE #2: Happy mom, happy kids.
#truestory #taktipu
Some people feel happiest when they're travelling. ✈️ Or shopping. 💸 Or gossiping. 😳 Me? I feel happiest when I'm writing. And I've come to realise that when I don't write, I'm less happy. Less satisfied. Less contented. Perhaps it's because I lack an outlet for release. K-dramas can only do so much. 😆😅😂
Anyhoo... enough blogging. Time to kut lat cho kang and get back to my freelance work. 📝 God-willing, may this be the beginning of my return to writing / advertising / freelancing / working life. Because nothing compares to it!
I love my kids – don’t get me wrong. But some days, I find myself missing the life I lived before they came around and turned my world upside down. I miss my kids when there not around, too – in case you were wondering. Some days more than others. But after that, I slap myself and go, “Hoi! Shaddap and enjoy your fleeting moments of freedom and independence la!” #torn
I used to be independent. In control. In charge. Self-reliant. Self-assured. Self-sufficient. I felt confident. And competent. Filled with charisma and bubbling over with excitement for Life and all its adventures. Positive. Passionate. Psyched to be alive and enjoying every moment of it. And I thought that because I was that kind of a person, I would be that kind of a mother, too.
But now?
I think... not so much so.
My life today is a showreel of perpetual chaos. A never-ending movie with no trailers, drinks, or popcorn to make a bad show better. I watch myself play the struggling, stumbling protagonist in a B-grade movie where no one listens, nothing gets done, and even if it does – someway, somehow by some miracle – nothing quite gets done right. Yesterday, today and every day.
And it’s all on me.
My fault.
My problem to solve.
My heartache to get over.
I sometimes wonder if this is what motherhood is supposed to be like. I’m never on my own – never alone. But the journey sure feels discouragingly lonely at times. Are my struggles like those of every other mom? Or am I the only unlucky one? Orrr... could it be that things just seem so sucky and unlucky for me because I’m actually just a lousy mom?
I’m plagued by insecurities that stem from my many inadequacies. I’m drowning in judgement piled on by others. I’m overwhelmed by the responsibilities that lay before me because of an unpaid and unappreciated role I’ve somehow come to undertake called “Mommy” – a name I’m called more often than my own now.
Mommy.
I have a love-hate relationship with this word. Is Mommy the only thing I am these days? Is this all my identity is wrapped around? Is this merely a role I play for a time in my life? Or has it become me? What happened to Pam? Where has that girl gone? Are we still the same person? Is she still me? Just somewhere I can no longer see? Hiding in the depths of me?
Some days, I can tell very clearly where Mommy ends and where Pam begins. Some days, I can’t. Most days, these days. And as the days of motherhood drone on and on, forever long, I realise that I see and feel the distinction between the two less now than I did before. The lines are blurring, and it makes me miss knowing who I am. Mostly, it makes me miss the me I was before.
