With long weekend ahead of us, we already planned few things to do over the weekend. On Saturday, Mika will have Manasik Haji in his school, Sunday - we planned to visit Sonia and Monday - I planned to stay home all day with possibility of going to salon for hair spa.

We started it with Manasik Haji. After some luring and carrot & stick technique, I finally managed to get Mika dressed up in his kain ihrom and leave the house on time. He was pouting all the way to his school because he wanted to stay home and play Play Station. I made a mental note to speak to him one more time about Play Station and how he should not let it get in his way to do other thing. The question is how? I honestly think that Play Station is a tool of evil.

We arrived around 7.30 am and the day was beautiful. With fluffy white clouds and clear blue sky. I could feel a drop of golden sun warming my face. There were already hundreds of kindergarten kids in his school wearing the same white dress. Mika met his friends and he begun to smile again. Not long after that he already busied laughing and shoving at each other. Phiew. Last time I checked, he was busy counting moles in his friend’s back. I almost could not suppress a big grin hearing their silvery laughter. It was contagious and heartening. Made my heart light and clear my head.

I stayed throughout the occasion. Met Mika’s teachers and used the opportunity to re-arrange the meeting for rapport on Wednesday. I also met other Moms. Didn’t chat quite much though. Everybody was busied taking pictures and making sure that their kids were not missing in the midst of white.

The kids were doing the complete Hajj in order. There was teacher who pretend that they were about to leave the Soekarno Hatta airport, arrive in King Abdul Aziz airport (I guess), staying in Mina, going through the Mina tunnel, throwing rocks (I was a bit worried as the kids happily throwing paper rocks at each other. I did not see any first aid kit around but I probably over reacted) at Jabal Ula, thawaf (moving in circle) around the Ka’bah (where they busily pushed the Ka’bah around), kissing the Hajar Aswad, Sa’i -which is actually running between Shafa and Marwah hills, which turn out to be the sprint contest, drinking the zam-zam water, pray together and cut the hair. They took picture whereby the Ka’bah is already several meters out of its original place.

I am happy to see that Mika had such a great time. He kept on stealing a glance at me. I heard him asked his friend, ” That’s my mother. Where is your mother?” So I guess it’s a good thing that I stayed. I want to enjoy this moment before he reach an age where he will be embarrassed to see his parents around.

Yesterday I went home quite late from the office. I was about the wrap up my day job when a manager called me around 5.45 pm and after several minutes discussion over the phone he summoned me to his office to finalize a bid document. The discussion went on until 8 pm and by the time we drove out of the office building the traffic was moving in snail speed! Gosh, I regret of not taking dinner first before going home.

I reached home around 10 pm and after attacking a bowl of corn flakes to ease the hunger, the first thing I saw was a red paper rose put on my dressing table. There is a small heart shape card attached to it, and when I open it I found Mika’s hand writing. It was written in snake like letters : I love you Mom. It took me a while to realise that I was 2 hours away from Mother’s day and I felt so blessed. There goes my exhaustion of spending 14 hours in the office fighting over some boring documents. I love you, kiddo! You made my life easier each and every day.

Happy Mother’s Day everybody!

I believe I was born as a fighter. Or at least, that is how I view my self. A fighter. I seldom accept things just the way they are and always try to fight my self through it. Either through influence (talking and convincing basically), fact and solid data or working my butt off if that’s the only way to get what I want. And most of the time, I always get what I want.

I guess that’s one of the reason why I have SLE. SLE is a funny thing. Once I read somewhere that it attacks either a very active person or a very quiet person. I know my self well enough to know which one I am. Being a fighter, it was hard for me to accept the fact that there is nothing I can do to fight SLE other than keep on taking the medicines and accepting the fact that I can die at anytime just like everybody else. Let me emphasize it one more time. I can die at anytime just like everybody else a lot more healthier than me. I am not special. Once I came into this conclusion, I found my self more relax and my SLE had became controllable. But it took me months to come to the point of total acceptance.

Similar thing have been happening again although it is now in different dimension.

It seemed that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much time I spent and no matter how robust the data I gathered, to some people - it was never enough. The demand is high and the load is overwhelming, although I managed and doing as best as I could, it still was not enough. It was frustrating and disheartening. And for a while I had difficulties in accepting the fact that , regardless all the effort, I was just not good enough.

I beat my self up for a week and try to see things in different angle. I came to a point that it is impossible to please everybody and not get my self caught in between. I feel like having lump in my throat trying to repress all the emotion I have been feeling and I know that this is bad for my self. I felt intellectually crippled and emotionally kidnapped.

 I finally managed to find a person where I could speak without having to worry of being judged or flamed. I was fully aware that the person I spoke to most probably will not be able to do anything about it but at least he is there to listen and emphatize. Without emotion. And with high degree of confidentiality. Someone that I fully trust will not repeat what I said nor let it influence his own emotion. Which is exactly what I need. Another emotion is the last thing I need at the moment.

And I gladly feel better afterwards. At least I am now at the beginning of accepting the fact that things has changed. What happened in a book, happened in a book. Life sometimes work in its own funny way where I do not always have control of what is happening nomatter how hard I want to control or influence it. It just not it. Not now. Probably not ever again. All I need to (and the only thing I can) do is do my own share and do things within my own domain as best as I could. The rest is up to life.

And no, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. So don’t ask me about what it is. Period.