It has been almost 30 years I've been married to the same person and the marriage still continues till today. All these years, I've been blessed with 3 beautiful children 2 boys and a daughter. My eldest is almost 27 years old and married with a son- my first grandson . My daughter in law is a government servant. My daughter ,however, is still single and enjoying her life. My youngest is a boy and still studying at UTM as an engineering student.
Bringing up the children in Bangi was not too difficult. There were plenty of religious schools and the government schools here were more than adequate to equip my children with the necessary skills and knowledge. My children when they were small were not too naughty; in fact ,they were typical children brought up in a typical family environment. One thing I remember about bringing up the children was that I never used 'rotan' to mold their behaviors . It was all about unconditional love and encouragement.
They progressed well and turn out to be quite an achiever. The first is a medical doctor at Putrajaya hospital and aspires to be a surgeon and is about to complete his horsemanship in a few months time, He's married to another doctor at the same hospital. My daughter is now a conveyancing lawyer in Bangi and she really enjoys her work. My third is a nuclear engineering student who will be a fourth year student soon and is in the midst of applying to do an industrial training in China. They have in short, all grown up.
I have now moved on to another stage of life. My life is the life of a person who is 55 years and above. This stage of life has a number of characteristics. For one, its the life of rather some emptiness because you dont really have lots of routines, responsibilities and challenges that you need to overcome. For one, you dont have to send your children to schools and pick them up in the afternoon from the religious schools. You dont have to send them to tuition centers in the evening and pick them up at 11.00 pm at night. In fact, the children are not with you anymore. You are just with your wife in the reasonably big house.The children dont share their problems anymore like they did when they were still in the school. I remember telling my daughter to stop talking and when she was talking non stop the minute I picked her up until we reached home . They were so much that she wanted to talk about. I really missed all those times.
Your life at this stage is also a life where you find having lunch or dinner is really a bore. At this age after coming back from work you dont really know where to eat and sometimes you dont even know what to eat. Eating now is no more joy. You just eat to live and you dont eat that much either. Even eating lobster does not taste good anymore. Unlike many years ago having dinner was the best time that you can have. We really planned elaborate dinner and lunch get -together especially during the weekends. We would be chatting non stop and at the same time enjoying the full meal. It was really fun and at the end of the meal everybody was completely full. For breakfast the spread was really amazing . Our breakfast would include scrambled eggs, hot dogs that have been basted with lots of butter, baked beans, French toasts, greasy fries, and lots of other delicious breakfast things. All those are gone . Most of the time my wife and I would be scouting where to eat. Believe me we have been to all the restaurants in Bangi. Im now a foodie expert at least a deft trained one in Bangi and can easily tell you where to go for lunch , dinner and for breakfast.
Mylife is now full of non physical type of activities like watching movies, cleaning up already cleaned toilets , going to IKEA in the morning to have brunch, watering the plants 2 times a day and sometimes doing some blogging for hours at a time. I personally have 5 blogs to manage and the blogs are very well received but they dont give you the personal satisfaction that you get from bringing up your children.
In short, life at 55 is getting less and less colorful and definitely less challenging . It could be that I dont know how to adapt or because Im really attached to my children. But one thing is clear your life is changing and you really have to accept and adapt. I hope I would be ready for that...
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