Home Is Where The Heart Is ... Sept 14, 2010

I got back to the stifling heat in Dubai yesterday evening, and although the humidity back home had me wishing I could walk about in the aircon all day, I still immediately wished I was back home - curled up with my daughters.

I guess it's never going to get any easier saying goodbye each time I have to catch a flight back to Dubai. There were tears from the girls and me with the final hugs and kisses and goodbyes before my brother zoomed me off to the airport.

And whilst waiting to board looking at kids with their parents really is sorta like salt in wounds cause my kids aren't with me.

It was a short trip home. And I was at home most of the time. Just relaxing with the girls, catching up on news and enjoying Malaysian food.

Caught up with my grandma who was telling me about her Italian and London trip. Caught up with some friends in church on Sunday. Visited Baby Melanie, a good friend of the family's new baby. Hung out for a bit in my usual KL haunt - in Happy Garden.

There's something about home and all places related to it. And tearing yourself away from home is about the hardest thing anyone can do.

Getting back to an empty apartment sorta just made me sit for a while in the darkness catching my breath. Because the emptiness of the place knocked the wind out of me. And I've started counting days till when I can hope on a plane and head home again.

It's times like this when I am overwhelmed with where my life had led me. Choices I made 15 years ago, is the price I pay now. And often dumbfounded when people tell me I am so brave and courageous.

The fact of the matter is I am chicken shit scared!

Yup it's out in the open - .ani is just one scared old lady trying very hard to maintain semblance of calm on the surface.

When a person decides to get married, we think we have a partner for the rest of our life to share the journey, but I learnt this is a nice to have and for a large segment it's a fairytale that eludes us.

When you have kids with the person you married, you think it strengthens the bonds between parents and transcending to parent child bonds, but I learnt soon enough my girls and I now form the statistical norm i.e. working single mother-children family units.

My decision to venture beyond Malaysian shores is stemmed from wanting to stop grasping at sinking financial straws and try to bring myself safe to shore in this perilous financial waters. It's the early days yet, and with current currency trends, sometimes it feels like instead of safety, I stepped into a whirlpool. Hit from all sides, it's hard keeping afloat let alone steady on angry buffeting seas.

As I looked upon my sleeping children's faces, I am convinced I am doing the right thing for us. And yet it pains me to not be there for them on a daily basis. Earning the moolah to keep us going is one thing, missing out on their growing up is another.

But I guess had all my plans worked to a T - I'd be tending house, raising kids, entertaining, holidays, family time ... maybe taking life for granted too, seeing as my spouse was on some meteoric rise in his career (taking from where he is today as a benchmark).

I guess what life has taught me since I woke up one morning to find all that was the norm was now a thing of the past was one can never take life for granted. Life kicks you in the teeth when you do.

Life teaches you that you can plan all you want but you are no way in control.

Life shows you to pick yourself up and find solutions.

Life reminds you that you must live life not go through the motions.

But life also teaches you to appreciate that even with what little one might have one can be content, one can be happy. All one needs to remember is not let the realities of existence, all those bills and expenses and red bank accounts rob you of the moments at hand.

It's damn nice to have large bank balances but it can't buy to love or respect ... ok momentarily it may. I realise I fall into the rat race rut if I allow all these things get to me. If I stop and for a moment think about all the things I DO HAVE, then I realise my life is pretty good going - I have family and friends who love me, I have beautiful children, I am blessed.

My heart is Malaysian, and that is home, but in the mean time it's back to making as much of a home as I can here in the desert. Who knows what awaits, someday perhaps this maybe my home if my heart start to beat in the rhythm of the desert.

I am back in Dubai .... counting my days to go home .... but I shall make it best darn days as possible :)

p/s: Have any of you watched Just Wright with Queen Latifa - for the romantics :)

Going Home ... Sept 07, 2010

It has been months since I last wrote anything in this blog. A couple of reasons contributed to this silence i.e.

• I moved into my own apartment and not gotten internet services installed
• I seem to have lost the art of stringing words for the lack of muse
• I have become a TV addict seeing as there is nothing else on hand to do once I get home
• I spend loads of time in the kitchen experimenting with Malaysian food giving it my own touch - no fatalities to date :)

So instead of writing for the sake of writing, I have kept silence. I spend long hours on my weekends sprawled out on my hall sofa with the TV on usually on Fox Series having an overdose of CSI Miami/NY, ER reruns, Army Wives, Mental, The Listener, Criminal Minds and my favourite of all Ugly Betty.

Aside from that I may at times flood my mind with struggling to grasp my father's tongue an essential in surviving Dubai - Malayalam by watching the news or movies and picking bits of the dialogue and then asking colleagues the next day what something meant if I couldn't decipher it.

Otherwise it is watching rather fascinated at the extremes Arabic music videos are .... barely clothed women to super orthodox. Their videos are either super sexual content or gun/sword/cane waving and violence and dying 'jihadis' .... never fails to leave me wondering about this part of the world.

But today I am excited. I am going home over the Eid holidays to see my girls after 4 long months and trust me when you're a mother, 4 months feels like an eternity.

Every time I call home to speak to them, they sound so different, and I feel a huge stab at how much of their growing up I am not going to see with my own eyes. What keeps me going is knowing this separation is because I've had to try to find a way to earn a bit more for our futures.

I had decided not to over indulge them out of guilt and I have to say yesterday when I was grabbing a quick bite at the Express Carrefour in my apartment building, I felt an urge to go nuts on the chocolate aisle throwing in all their favourite chocs into my basket - aside from that being completely unhealthy, I also had to remind myself with the stronger RM every AED I took home meant a better exchange rate to cover the monthly expenses I still have to service.

But I know when I land in KLIA tomorrow afternoon, I am likely to succumb the call of the choc-shop and buy some for them. In fact I am already thinking if while killing time in T3 Dubai this evening, I should give in and by them each a lil pink camel :) ... coz it has always been my habit to buy them stuffed toys of local animals .... being in the desert what else is there that I can buy ehehhe but camels :D

I hardly slept a wink last night. Tossing and turning till my alarm rang to shower and dress for work. Too excited. Knowing that the never ending silence I face in Dubai will be completely shattered from the moment I walk in through the gates of home. And for the next 6 days it will be the usual war mediator, traffic warden and mommy to snuggle up with.

Am sure there will be versions of the same incident - one from Ashna and one from Kasha - both completely bowling me over that both my babies are growing up so fast. Every time I see babies and toddlers here I remember when I first held them in my arms. Now Ashna was almost my height when I left with Kasha chasing behind.

Am looking forward to home. Local food I miss so much here in Dubai. Sights sounds smells and the green as opposed to the sand here. Perhaps a little rain even :D .... that be awesome. To smell the world after a nice rain when everything looks washed and cleaned.

Perhaps the desert has parched my soul, and being from the tropics, I need the rain to feel REALLY alive again.

Catch you all when I get back or maybe I might write some when at home, inspired because home is where the heart is .... and my heart always remains Malaysian.

Eid Mubarak to all my Muslim friends and happy holidays to the rest .....