1. My first year as a wife.
Would say I get a B+ for this. Possibly A- if we’re going to grade on a curve. My cooking skills are still non-existent and my recipe books languish in the dusty nook on top of my refrigerator, but my husband has managed to put on a few discreet pounds post-marriage, which is what husbands are supposed to do if they’re happy, right?
And although I avoid cleaning the apartment unless absolutely necessary (like when I spill things, which actually happens much less than it should when you factor in my lack of hand-eye coordination and tendency to slam things down on tables), I have a trusty part-time cleaner who ensures that Goose and I do not live in squalor.
And! Goose and I have fallen into a housekeeping routine where we each take care of certain house errands and chores, and 90% of the time it works every time. For example, Goose only finds himself completely out of clean underwear about once every few weeks (I never find myself out of clean underwear because the ratio of my underwear to Goose’s is 3:1., as evidenced by my overflowing underwear drawer), and we have only once found ourselves without electricity (which has more to do with constantly being on vacation and the irregularity with which we receive our electricity bills, really.)
I shall also give myself extra credit for being a generous and regular distributor of no-strings-attached massages and I have never! NEVER! (okay maybe only like once) let us run out of toothpaste. I’m not sure that the list of wifely duties is exhaustive, definable or actually generally agreed on at all, but for some reason, I am quite sure that it includes never letting your spouse worry about whether he has to go to work without having brushed his teeth because he has run out of toothpaste.
2. Kissed goodbye to extreme myopia and astigmatism and waved (blinked?) hello to 20/20 vision
Thanks to this magical newfangled technology called Implantable Collamer Lens (which sounds fancy but is really just –prepare to have your mind blown—a permanent contact lens): I have 20/20 vision for the first time in TWENTY YEARS. I really can't emphasize how huge this is. I have been blind as a bat for most of my life. I couldn't see beyond my nose—literally (as in, I have a tall nose bridge and also I was that blind). I used to have morbid fantasies where I'd be in a plane crash, shipwrecked on a desert island and be a completely useless member of the survivor society because I wouldn't be able to use my contact lenses without any contact lens solution, and inevitably, at some point, would lose my glasses and then be eaten by my fellow survivors (so at least I'd be useful as food).
But NOW I can see better than most people! I no longer live in fear of being voted out of any survivor community that doesn’t produce its own contact lens and contact lens solution! I don't have to pack contact lens cases or glasses when I travel! And I get to see the world in all its glory as soon as I wake up! Was totally worth it, even if I did have to stop using eyeliner for a month (which was one of the most painful parts of the experience).
3. Went for surgery to remove a tumour from my breast.
Made me appreciate my health, and also my previously unscarred breasts. Honestly. I’ve always thought my breasts were too small, but they used to be small and unsullied. Now they are small and slightly scarred. Well, one of them.
There's nothing quite like a random mass of growth in your body to make you freak out like you never have before, set you into panic mode, and move mountains to get that sucker out of there. The tumour was benign, and surgery sucks. Luckily, I did this surgery before I did my eye surgery, so once they made me take off my glasses and laid me out on the operating table ready to be cut open – everything was a blur, which made it a little less sucky.
4. Bought my holy grail Fuck Off bag.
A big deal because it’s my holy grail bag! And also because it’s a symbol of my complete and total financial independence: I didn’t have to wait for Mommy and Daddy or Husband (who all frankly have wildly different views than me on the values of handbags, by which I mean, just don’t get it) to gift me anything – I’m lucky enough to be in a position to buy things when I want them.
5. Went on an epic Eurotrip of a honeymoon (honeymoon of a Eurotrip?) with my favourite person in the world.
Epic not only because of how many places we visited (London, Amsterdam, Florence, Rome and then London again), or how much leave I took (3 whole weeks away from work; woohoo motherfuckers!), or the many, many beautiful sights we saw, food we ate and experiences we…. umm… experienced, but also because it really made me appreciate how lucky I am to be married to someone who loves all this as much as I do.
The travelling from place to place, navigating completely unknown cities by foot or public transportation, trying to converse (and failing miserably) in unfamiliar languages and picking a new place to eat every day: to do that consecutively for 3 weeks with one other person means you love adventure, and you love that other person (honestly – I’ve always maintained that one of the best tests to see if you really know someone is to travel with them or live with them).
So we saw and did amazing things (Jay-Z at the O2! Turandot at Teatro dell’Opera in Roma! Educational shows in Amsterdam! Beautiful art and artifacts everywhere!) and also reunited with family members (siblings, siblings-in-law, cousins) and practically family members (college roommate). Best second honeymoon ever (Bali/Gili Islands was the first honeymoon). Cannot wait to see where Goose takes me for the third honeymoon.
(I’m kidding, I put that in to freak him out.)
(I’m only half kidding.)
6. Went to Seoul for a hectic, party-filled wedding weekend.
Honestly. I can count on my fingers the number of hours of sleep I got there. If trips had names, this would be titled Sleepless in Seoul. We came; we went to a club (ah don’t all the best stories start like this?), got a tour of Seoul at 3am, went shopping in Gangnam (sounds ballin’ right?), went to my college roommate’s wedding, went to the wedding afterparty, took the entire afterparty entourage to Goose’s friend’s club where DJ JAZZY JEFF WAS PLAYING and so basically organized the after-after-party, had amazing Korean barbeque, and got on plane… so I think it’s safe to say we conquered Seoul. For now. Must go back though. The Korean barbeque was amazing.
So that was the year in review. In retrospect, it included a lot of travelling and surgeries. May 2014 bring more travelling, and no more surgeries! The year has somewhat started off on the right track for this as we ushered in 2014 on Koh Phangan in Thailand, and it is now 10 days into January and I have not had any surgeries. So far so good 2014.
Added: more firsts that I completely forgot about:
7. First time I cut hair short/First time I have ever NOT had super long hair.
So although it's only a long bob (which, according to the extensive internet research I carried out prior to chopping off all said hair, is also known as a "lob"; but since lob is perhaps the most unattractive hairstyle name ever I'm going to stick to "long bob") and not a shaved head or pixie cut, it's still a big deal because I've had long hair my whole life. When I was a wee lass, I was one of those extremely feminine girly-girls who used to only wear dresses and skirts and bows and ribbons (I remember being totally horrified that my younger sister used to love wearing shorts - like ugh, what are you, a barbarian boy?!), and my (actually, probably my mother's) pride and joy was my hair, which my mother would braid intricately each morning.Even the very first costume I ever wore, for my first Kindergarten Dress-As-A-Book-Character day (the beginning of a sordid love affair that is still going strong with wearing costumes, going to costume parties, and Halloween) was Rapunzel, in all her hirsute glory. My mother really went all out for that: she had a floor-length custom-made medieval-era dress made for me and bought metres of brown yarn, which she braided into a thick plait, and then fastened onto my hair with ribbons. Walking around school with a brown yarn braid that literally trailed on the floor behind me and feeling like a real princess is probably one of my earliest childhood memories.
Exact replica of my favourite book at the time, and inspiration for my costume (apart from the hair colour).
Hmm I'm digressing. Anyway, the long and short of it (*ahem* pun) is that as I grew older and my hair became curlier, I still kept my hair long and thought I'd feel naked and insecure without it. I've thought this for so long that I don't realise when I stopped thinking it, but sometime in early December, I realized I was ready for a change. And then I made an appointment and cut it all off. It's been liberating to be able to use less shampoo and conditioner; it was scary to see how my hair would behave (surprisingly, so far: not very badly at all).
It's just hair. I can't believe it's taken me almost 29 years to come to that conclusion and stop hiding behind it (metaphorically). It'll grow back. It doesn't define me, and isn't my defining feature (or at least, not anymore!). I realize all this in hindsight, but I can tell you while I was sitting in the salon chair waiting for the first snip of the scissors: it was almost as adrenaline-inducing as waiting for a rollercoaster to start moving.
8. First time spending Hari Raya with two families.
I agonized about this earlier, but Married Hari Raya actually wasn't that bad. I got to spend the first day of Malaysia's Hari Raya in KL with my in-laws, and then spent the following day in Brunei - but the following day was still only the first day of BRUNEI'S Hari Raya! (Brunei has for the past 6 years had Hari Raya one day later than Malaysia and pretty much the rest of the world, due to a stubborn refusal to move on with the times and actually use things like, umm math and calculation and science to determine the lunar calendar.)The first day of Hari Raya is like the first day of Christmas: as in, yes, technically there are more days to follow the first day (11 more in the case of Christmas and 29 more for Hari Raya) but the first day is the best. It will always have the best food, the most family members, and is the biggest deal. And we got to have two, with both our families. Maybe should stop criticizing Brunei as being backward and outdated since its backward- and outdated-ness is what enables this fortuitous turn of events in the first place.
