Being in my 20's, I'm beginning to realize that not everything is a Fairy Tale and neither do we all have perfect "happy endings". The TV has formed very false representations of what life truly is and for that, I'm feeling like an onion. Peeling the layers off, one by one, erasing the unrealistic ideals yet holding to the hopes and dreams I want in my life (which by the way, changes every second). As you grow older, you realize that that dream house, job, partner or car isn't as ideal as what you thought it would be. I mean, who doesn't want a gorgeous looking partner, with a high paying salary and a bungalow, with a perfect garden, big enough for your five beautiful children to run about, yet protected by that perfect white picket fence you surround your house with. That's the dream for most of us.
However, I'm beginning to realize that all is not as it seems. The battle here is "aesthetic living vs. practicality". A big house means more floors to clean, more curtains to wash, more bed sheets to rinse and more backaches that comes with it. A bigger car means that it's harder to find a car park, a bigger risk of hitting other cars with yours, the amount of fuel mileage it consumes, leading it to the more petrol it swallows. And it's almost impossible to look gorgeous while doing housework because there's no point in having not so clean floors compared to looking pretty while doing it. (Screw desperate housewives for that, lol!) I mean, the prettier the light looks, the harder it is to change it's light bulbs if you know what I mean. I tried changing them in my house and have come down to a conclusion that pretty stuff takes more time, effort and sweat to manage. Rethinking of what I would want in my own future home when the time comes, because there are so many things to wonder about. All of sudden, my mom, dad and aunts look like superheroes. I mean, how did they manage? With their own jobs, bills to pay, children to care for, transportation they need to settle, I mean, managing a household seems like a whole art skill in itself. Yet, they never left me and my sister hungry. It's truly amazing.
And so, I'm starting to manage my expectations, I don't even know what my dream job is or if there's actually such a thing, because all those television series with high-flying lawyers and super smart forensic people are totally sensationalized to keep their audience-ship. Nothing I have ever thought or imagined actually turns out to be as it is in reality. We get a job because we need to survive. We get married because that's the social norm and we go through everyday of our lives struggling instead of triumphing. But the matter of the fact is that God never called us to be like that. He created life for pleasure and despite one man's fall, he redeemed the whole situation through another man's resurrection (Romans 5:19). And that is the amazing part.
Despite the global economic downfall, where it was easy for our grandparents to have five to ten kids, now, just having one already needs a lot of pre-thinking and pre-planning. Or like how it maybe even cheaper to eat out than to homecook because with RM50, there's only that much you can buy.
So as life dwindles and maneuvers and swerves in all it's different places, and things don't turn out the way I thought they'll be, I'll just keep the faith that God got's my back. For I know that across the decades, including the timeline of my parents, there was once when they were afraid too of the unknown, about the job they'll get and the family they'll come to nurture, But here I am and this is me, and things didn't turn out that bad. And in that I find my security. The knowing that God created us to be able to handle the setbacks. surprises and pleasant outcomes that comes with life.
Things are different from here on forward. Husbands may not earn enough to maintain households while wives may have to take up jobs and not be able to become the "perfect" homemakers they once intended to be. Needless to say, time spent with their own children maybe inevitably decreasing, but I know that the human mind has the capacity to manage and it just boils down to the managing of our expectations.... (Of course it's not that simple, but you know what I mean.)
