life is a road, now and forever.. wonderful journey
i meant to write this probably 2 weeks ago when that one particularly important date occured.
excuses - i've been busy. i've had way too many things to handle. i've really just been a tad bit lazy.
i think sometimes we interchange excuses and reasons to justify whatever it is that is on hand, depending on person and situation. let's really be honest. i haven't exactly bothered.
my thoughts have been quite jumbled over the last few months. ever since i landed in this country to start what is known to be another chapter of my life, it had been .. hit the ground running with a lot of things. within the last 7-8 months that i have been in this country, we've acquired our own property. i managed to get a job. we now have a pet dog, who really is more like a daughter than a pet considering how much we've been paying in vet fees. all in all, time.. really waits for no one.
it was about 2 weeks ago that we (Ryo or Lyo and I) hit our one year wedding/marriage anniversary. though.. technically it isn't a wedding anniversary because we haven't done the ceremony yet. but that date, was the date that we officially got hitched on paper. a piece of green paper, signed in Japan in front of 6 of our closest friends.
our anniversary was celebrated with a day out with some family friends followed by a quiet evening at home with home delivered expensive sushi. there were flowers. there were kisses and etc. it wasn't your extravagant affair but it was done.. in our way.it was one of those moments where you go.. ah... society and their damn social media expectations can be gone. this is my bloody anniversary, i will do whatever the fuck i want with it.
i wish the same could be said about the wedding that i am planning. right from the start, i had been very reluctant to hold a wedding. the logistics had been such a nightmare trying to get so many parties from so many damn country into one country. the problem with our wedding is.. we didn't want it and as they say.. it's really hard to want to do something when you don't want it to begin with. more or less, things are pretty much set in stone for our wedding. the dates, venue and all those fabulous things are locked in. now, it's just waiting for the date to come to get it done.
weddings.. to me had always been a very superficial affair. especially when you're of chinese descent. weddings are large. an intimate wedding is unheard of. obviously you have your exceptions. in my case, we aren't an exception. though our head count is considered small on the scale of chinese weddings, it is still larger than most western weddings i know of. i will tell you that i don't know half of the people invited because it is tradition .. for your parents to show you off on your big day.
i suppose i sound very much like an ungrateful spoilt brat, after all, the parents are financing the wedding, they really can do whatever they want. at the very least, my parents left the planning and all the fantastic decision making to me. i guess it was their way of saying, we just want to celebrate you, you do you, boo. deep breath. end rant.
i've sidetracked a bit too much.
i meant to talk about what marriage means. at least, to me.. at this particular checkpoint. i've learned a lot and i imagine that i will continue to learn. things are not always happy but at the end of the day (before we conk for the night), it is always happy. they say you never truly know someone until you start living with them and i have to say, it is quite true. good news is, we aren't divorced yet. bad news is, there was a lot of things to adjust to. i can understand why many relationships don't work out after they move in together but part of me also feel like, the generations are getting more and more self absorbed. it is always 'my way or the high way'. you can't exactly always have your way in a relationship. it's a two people thing. there needs to be some sort of balance. our adjustment period was short. i adapted pretty quickly and my husband is a very tolerant man.
no doubt, we have many differences. we have our banters now and then. but.. we talk.. and we talk a lot. then again, we really only have each other at home besides our dog. we talk about everything and anything.
there are many things that i appreciate about my husband. he has done many things to make up for the fact that i gave up many things in my life to be with him. some of the things here in Japan are challenging for foreigners. they really make it hard for you to do anything. i've said it many of a times.. for such an advanced country, their main functionalities are still very much archaic and outdated. it makes it hard for someone who isn't particularly fluent in the language to function independently. the one thing that really broke me as a person when i got to this country was that a lot of my independence was taken away. i misplaced my bank book a week ago and thought it was missing.. so i went through the motions to get it stopped and all that great things.. but i couldn't do it on my own. i had a mini breakdown. i suppose you can call it ego but i had been a pretty independent character for over 10 years. the moment i started university, i've done many administrative back office things on my own. when i needed anything, i had always been able to do it on my own. i resent that quite a bit. the husband understands this. he was so nice to not rub things in my face or get angry at me for my own carelessness. it takes a big person to not play the 'that's silly of you, isn't it?' card. if it was any other person (like my dad for example), i'm pretty sure i would have been told off.
again, i digress.
i guess you can say i am happy to be where i am today. happiness means a whole different yard now. things that used to many me happy, doesn't anymore. things that i didn't think would make me happy... now do. i guess that's what progress is. we'll just have to wait and see what else this way comes.
