Yes, I do my own ironing- if you are wondering about that and late Sunday nights are when I enjoy ironing the most, with some background music from my ol' iPod and Creative speakers (an ironic odd pair, if you ask me - the speakers I inherited from my brother).
I saw baby Hassan still playing with a ball in the balcony and messing up the whole darn place, so I figured 12am is still not too late to play some music and get some ironing done. I'm still pissed with the fact that my brother Joe still has no returned some of my new nicer shirts that he 'borrowed' without my permission and my hounding has fallen on deaf ears.
Why do I love ironing?
Well, I get to think a lot and focus on my thoughts while ironing. Ironing is one of the easiest chores to do and you do get to be pensive and collect all of your thoughts together.
Of course, I constantly think about my mum and how she is doing, wherever she is and she is one of the people I start to think of the moment I lay down my first shirt on the ironing board. I can still remember how my pa related the story of my little sister, Nurul, having a dream about my mother in a big, nice house and looking at her from inside. Nurul said she looked happy. I also thought of a time when I had a vivid dream of being with my mother in a big house all the way up in the mountains but facing the sea, and how it all seemed so beautiful.
I also think of the girls who have loved me and how I loved them back. I really feel bad for leaving B just like that without a word, and how she kept calling and SMSing to tell me how much she missed me and how sad she was. She is one of the few girls I was unsure of, although we went through all those things that lovers go through, and more. I still think of Christine and her tears and how I realised that she really loved me. The horror that I've done to her I will never forget, though I console myself that I really did love her too - thus the things I did. Yuko san is also one of the few girls I was unsure of too, although we had planned to get married, as with S, my very first girlfriend. B2, I haven't heard of for a long time but I rarely think of her, although I cared a lot about her but I don't know whether she thought of me merely as a lover or somebody she loved. I shall not name all the girls I have been with but I do cherish every sweet moment I had with them. With all these experiences, I concluded that I rarely am infatuated with somebody. I'm much too mature for that. Let people believe what they want to believe. Only God and I know what I went through.
A colleague recently remarked that I do not know what I want. I don't agree with her though. I know perfectly what I want. I want the same things that most people do, that is to be happy. But of course, nobody's lives are the same. The environments you've been nurtured in, the things you have been exposed to, the beliefs you have been instilled with, the decisions that you make along the way, the tragedies that you have been served with for whatever reasons, the lives of the loved ones that you have lost - all these come together and affect your future and your current state of being.
Everything has its time and place, and it is different from person to person. You cannot expect people's lives and worlds to be the same as yours. Some people say that when you die and go to heaven, your wife or husband whom you will see in heaven will be in the prime of his or her life and you will see him or her in the most beautiful state, and your love will be unquestioned and pure. But what happens to people who marry for the sake of money or looks? What if they die during that kind of marriage? Who will they see in heaven?
I also think of the other people in the world who are suffering insufferable sufferings. While people here are worrying about road taxes, COEs and whether they can afford a unit in Sentosa Cove, other people who live in places like Lebanon, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa and other places where there are ethnic cleansing. civil war, terrorism, famine, and other atrocities man-made can only think of their mortality, their families, their limbs and their futures. Most are bleak, some are given second chances in life to start anew. Ya, it does make me feel lucky that people bug me about when I'm getting hitched, or when I'm getting a better job. I really do feel sometimes that I should explain to them my own version of happiness and the fact that I don't exactly envy them or their lifestyles in life, I have learnt to let people hear what they want to hear. Most people choose conventionality and the safest paths because they want what other people have, they rarely think about what they really want and what makes them feel alive.
Yes, people do let fear lead their lives and sometimes I pity these people and what they are missing out on. I mean, life is so darn short, so why do you have to let other people dictate how your life goes? What is the worst that can happen? Aren't we all supposed to fear only God?
Well, I shall leave you to think about that during YOUR ironing session.
Till then....
