I have always had someone to be a role model for me, albeit their acknowledgement of it. Back in school, my peers and some seniors were those who I looked upon whenever I made my decisions.

Later in life, I embarrassingly refer to my social medias to see what kind of lifestyle/principles do I prefer whenever I see something I want to achieve or how I illustrate my future. I look up to certain moguls and let them rage my enviousness with their perfect lives.

I get too emotional sometimes but I see less harm in it because wanting to be like them make want to work harder. They make me get up in the morning when all I wanted to do was to be a permanent potato couch. (Sadly, I still do.)

But today I realized something absurd, or impossible even. I found nothing/nobody I can seek from to what I really want in life (for now). In 10 years from now, I seek of a pre-financial freedom lifestyle. A full freedom would be on its way 15-20 years from now but I have to make do with what I have in the present.

This pre-financial goal that I have, needs some amendment of the current lifestyle that I am adopting now. This goal that I have structured, shall make us abide to all decisions that would neither burden our kids nor our extended family members in under any circumstances. Simultaneously, I seek a life that would not create enemy, not making public of our private lives (so socials media platform is a no-no), and definitely not having our kids deprived of our love and attention throughout their childhood.

In fact, I seek of a lifestyle that also can contribute to them in any way possible. This goal should also have positive impacts to not only its members but also to its communities, directly and indirectly.

Along with it, in the mean time, I seek to do this by only my husband and myself without having a full-time nanny/maid while also developing my career.

Well, this is where I stumble. I could not find any friend or even a mogul that did all by themselves while wanting to achieve what I want to achieve. All of them have their own helpers, while those who don't have; have dreams of nothing like mine.

I guess I have to be my own role model now...

Dear Arisa

Dear Arisa,

Today as you looked at me, mouth wide open, smiling with those pair of big beautiful dark brown eyes, amused by the smooch sound I made while kissing your tiny hand, I felt a sting of sadness in my heart because I know one day you might not look at me the same again.

One day you will find out about my flaws and my shortcomings and one day you might decide that I was not the best mother to you. One day you might have grudge against me, or against my decisions affecting you, or not, that might draw you away from me. One day you might feel that I don't love you with all that I have, that I should do better to show it to you.

On those fateful day, I hope you would forgive me for my weaknesses and never cease to believe my whole heart have always been made for both of you and your sister. My only reason for existing is for you two, and your dad alone. I pray that those day will never come but who knows what Allah has prepared for us in the future.

Then again, all those feelings faded away as I noticed you showed me your hands near to my mouth, perhaps wanting me to make that sound again. As I love being your greatest (for now) muse, as long as God would allow me, I would never mind kissing your hand and make that smooch sound over and over again until you decide to scratch my face...and farted. Nice Arisa, nice. Way to tell me you love me too...

Mistakes I do not want to do, and insyaAllahs I would make myself do

1) I would not criticize my children for who they are, instead if I see fit, I would give them constructive feedbacks to build them up, never to break them apart.

2) I would not remind my children of their failure in life however small I might think it was and take it against them. Especially in front of anybody else. Or even to joke around.

3) I would remind my children that I love them everyday, if not every hour of my living life, in any way possible, any way so they would realize it.

4) I would never burden my children of my own mistakes and make them feel responsible for it.

5) I would never hold my kids guilty for not giving me money or any material figure so they can show me their appreciation for raising them.

6) I would make myself available for my children in every occasion during they will be needing me however petty/unimportant/insignificant that occasion is to me at the time.

7) I would lend my ear and soul for them during when they need mine to help them go through life, however simple I think that is at the time.

Middle of the night ramble

I'm afraid of people. 

Specifically, I'm afraid of their judgements, words, and accusations. 

I try to be nice and play along even when their judgements hurt me. 

I try to look past through them but when thrown with it everyday I'll start to believe that they are real.

Sometimes I will brave myself to utter some words to defend what is left of me.

Or sometimes I slide in a few jokes to tell them that it's not okay to say that to me.

But I guess they look past that too, because they did it again today.

5 magic words

When I was 13 I was enrolled into a boarding school and was sent hundreds of kilometers away from the most comfortable space I called 'home'.

I then realized that that was the most profound turning point that brought me where I am today, to which I would never change, whatever comes my way. I am exactly where I want to be. But that story is for another day.

I also learned that there actually was magic, if not in its real form, to which I have been fed before then but in the form of literature. We know it by the name of 'WORD'. Yes, at the boarding school I learned, that there are 5 magic words.

The initials of the 5s are S.T.E.P.S, but the greatness of each was in no particular order. Now is where I am going to tell you what are the steps.

S- Salam
T- THANK YOU
E- Excuse me
P- Please
S- Sorry

Where are the magic? You might ask. But trust me, the magic of these words lie in our daily lives, instilled in our very being, only if we know where and how to use it. But the most important is, whether or not we use it.

Anyway today I'm gonna just emphasize on one magic word and let you folks figure out the rest by yourselves.

See the one with ALL CAPS? Yes that one.

I find it very irritating and disgusting when people who should be using that word during certain times in their lives fail to utter the very simple two syllables.

I also find it repulsive to these people who earn what they desire or just receiving something that helped them in any ways but have no common sense of saying it, let alone trying to pay the debt as a symbolic gesture.

I always admire the wests, and also the Japanese, in some ways because most of them, they breath the word 'thank you' like its almost the air they 'exhale' after they 'inhale' kind deed from other people.

This habit of saying thank you is what I think a humble human being should have in their core, as their base, in whatever way they wish to express it.

Sadly, this is not common from where I belong, literally and definitely, figuratively.

An evening on the beach

The four of us were sitting on the edge of a beach, with our little diaries 
in our hands, writing our hearts out. The girls were using their favorite 
color pencils while we borrowed some of theirs that they left in the box. 

We wrote how the day started, the places we visited, and the people we met. 

I glanced at Sarina's page and saw little drawings of us 4 blended with 
the Sun and the Sea and I felt warmth in my heart. 
Then I took another glance at Arisa's and I saw more use of 

new words written in it, and I felt a hint of proud in me. 

They are taking our world by storm, these two. 
From the day they were born and 

I pray they will never cease to do so. 

And then I asked them to write something important, I said. 

This time I told them to think hard and take as long as they wanted to 
and Mommy will wait until they decide that they are done. 

This statement, I read it in a book written by Stephen Covey a few years ago. 

I learned to write a personal mission statement of myself at that time so 
I'd be a better person in the future, a person who is proactive instead of reactive, 
who begins everything in her life with the end in her mind. 
This one page instilled in me a sense of mission, a sense of clarity, 
organization and commitment, exhilaration and freedom. 

I hope that this page also help my girls to feel the same and help them in their life throughout with choices that they will face, with problem that they will encounter, and with people that they will meet. 

Motherhood

Title sounds so cliche (among my group of friends of same age) but surprisingly, that's been going on with my life now.

It's 12:52 sharp Malaysia time right now while I am typing this very sentence, and by this time 1 month and 2 weeks ago I was in labor, fighting for my dear life and my two little girls in me.

46 days ago I gave birth to a pair of beautiful baby girls in my birthplace, Kuala Lumpur. My eldest daughter was born at 1:49 am and one minute later at 1:50 my youngest came out, Alhamdulillah healthy. They were on their 38th week that day, where the physicians in HKL confirmed that a pair of monochorionic/diamniotic (mo-di) identical twins are at higher risk of multiple complications including fatality if not to be taken out if not yet born naturally. I was admitted January 21st on Sunday and scheduled for an induction the next day.

My water broke at 12 in the afternoon of 22nd January by a physician's hand-crafted painful 'poke' which I requested an epidural to accompany the much anticipated contractions to come. The opening was at 3cm approximately and I was told to have 7cm more to go until I should start feeling a gush of 'fake bowel movement'.

I started pushing around 12 midnight but was taken to the operation theatre for an emergency Cesarean Section after 1 hour of excruciating pain. My epidural tube was not working (they later decided there has been a leakage on their part) and I was put to sleep during the whole process. Naturally, I did not had my skin-to-skin with my newborn daughters right after they kissed my belly goodbye.

By the time I woke up, my husband was on my right bedside and two tiny-red-colored human were on my left. My face was stuffed with oxygen to help me breathe, and I found myself very tired and not able to produce sound like I normally do. My voice did not come out properly and I couldn't bare to move since the pain around my abdomen was surfacing.

My brand-new daughters and I were detained for 1 week (due to the girls' showing symptoms of Jaundice) at the hospital which during it my husband especially and parents helped me throughout the most confusing; I must say, and painful days I have ever been in my life.

Fast forward today, they are still helping me coping with this new amazing God-given joy that anyone could ever ask for. I must see myself put them before me and anything else in the future hoping that I could ever pay it back to them for what they have done for me.

I am almost recovered from the pain and post-operative wound, can walk and sit like I used to, but to a certain amount of speed or else I would start feeling uncomfortable right beyond the surgery incision.

We are loving every bit of parenthood (grandparenthood in my parents' case) and could not ask for more. Sleepless nights and first time parent's argument are all worth it when the twin flash us their untimely baby smile here and there when being attended to.

I pray to God to give me enough time to see the girls grow up to be someone strong, recognized in His heaven's community, in their lifetime and in the hereafter, and I am looking forward to be a better person because of them.

My favorite mantra in this journey is; 'Strong women...may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them'.

Amin.

Our bundle of joy