Questa è Enida

There’s nothing wrong with wanting. To want is human. I never question you for wanting. I want too, because I do have the ability to want. I am alive. In fact, if I can…I would want to want everything. And no, I would not blame you for wanting everything either. Go ahead, want all you want. Want all you can want.

But to HAVE everything you want without wanting to prioritize…is evil!

You know the way I work. I don’t ask too many WHY questions. So, with your wanting…I am asking you:

• What do you really want for you?
• When do you want it?
• How much do you want it?
• How long do you think you can stay wanting it?
• What are you going to do when you get what you want?
• Where are you going with what you want?
• Who are you going to be when you get what you want?
• Who do you want?
• Whom do you want to be with?

Go ahead and want what you want. Once you have answered my WHQ’s, I will know your WHY’s without asking you why. Right now, all I want is to live my life for now – for the moment. I can’t change the past and I don’t want to anticipate the future. Worry is the last thing I want to worry about. So why worry now if I can worry later – if I worry later, or if I ever.

If I can stay wanting you, I’ll want you for the rest of today. That’s the longest into the future I would want to see. Tomorrow, I’ll want you again and perhaps pray that I will want you for the rest of tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow I’ll decide again if I want you for the rest of that day.

I have answered my own questions. If you want to know my answers, you have to want me.

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My children came home from school yesterday with flowers for my Wednesday.

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Considering how the morning went:

• me taking my brother, Ah Lam, to the Kecemasan Bukan Kritikal department at Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for his second blood test as he was a suspect dengue patient
• me going up to the 6th floor to see Mom, checking on her and my little brother Flick who had been at Mom’s side for 48 hours
• me coming home after all the commotion, cooking for Mom and sending the La Gourmet holdall back to Ward 6G by dinnertime
• me running around to get the ball rolling (with the movers for our consignment to Moscow)
• me chevying those guys at Ladachi Furniture for taking forever to replace a roller on my TV cabinet door
• me doing this and that and still feeling like I wasn’t doing enough

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Me me me!

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It was all about me until Kitreena and Edrick came home with these bright red teentsy blooms and asked me to smell the flowers. They were no roses. But the whole world stopped spinning when I smelled the Teentsies and the two Monchies. It is all about me. The blessed little me!

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*Please be aware that some facts written here can be classified as exaggeration in the states (of mind) that do not tolerate free speech but encourage open burning.

I’m neither here nor there.
Could you come find me and wait for me…nevertheless?

Please?

I was at the kitchen counter when Ka Cher came in with the IKEA stool in one hand reporting, “I found your son climbing on this stool, shoes on and all, trying to get out of the house through the window!” I didn’t know whether to laugh at Edrick’s desperation to get out, to applaud at his ala MacGuyver’s smartness, or to cry at the thought that he was trying to run away from home!

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Of course he was upset with Aunty Mas for failing his attempt to jump out the window. When I went to console my upset son, I somehow felt a rush of strange connection to the past. My past. And Ka Cher was there to share and connect them all: me, my son, my past and running away from home. I did, nonetheless, had a good laugh. Both at my son and myself, my past included.

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I couldn’t blame Edrick for wanting to get out of the house in dire straits (probably not so much for running away – I did advise him to at least bring some change of clothes, food and umbrella if he were to run away! Or at least get fed beforehand, like I was by Ka Cher who fed me Bubur Kacang that one fateful evening back in 1979!)

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It had been raining all morning. And we were all donned up in Raya clothes ready to cheer the world up. Anybody would have felt stranded given the situation, wouldn’t they? Well, we ended up not going anywhere anyway. I, for one, didn’t need to. All (except one) that I want, and all that fill my heart are right under my roof.

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I’ll keep the stool out my son’s sight for now… and for the next 18 years.

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After taking quite a bit of time drafting, deleting, writing and righting the thoughts of making an announcement…I decided to just say it as it is:

Lessons learned, changes needed and phases passed. We are leaving the country, moving to a bigger, more crowded and not necessarily better place – for the better future. Life was easy until we had to learn to handle crises. Hurt, we did and we were. But hurt was also the mistake we vowed not to make again. Effective communication, we found out, is the one-size-fits-all kinda solution. So we are wearing it now and forever more.

God is good.