50 Ringgit Girl

I am deeply blessed to have a husband who is genuinely willing to learn how to be both a husband and a father. He is not perfect, and duhh, neither am I. My previous post was about learning to recognise the woman I am becoming. This one, this time around, is about recognising the man who is making space for that woman to breathe and exist, even whilst we're both learning how to be parents.  I intentionally mentioned his role as a “husband” then his “father” duty becauuuuuse! At first, this baffled me. In fact, it made me so mad. Like really mad! I was genuinely upset, and in the middle of all that madness, I asked him, “WHY?” I mean, how could youuuu? He is our son. He is so tiny, so reliant on us. Surely, he should come first in everything? And then my husband answered: “I know you’re going to take care of him and do everything you can for him. So I choose you first, even sampai tua nanti .” It took me a while to step back and understand what my husband was trying to do. And when ...

 It has been 13 months postpartum and yes, my head still messy.  The initial newborn survival fog has lifted, but now there is this quiet, strange pressure lingering in the background: I need to find myself again. Like now! It's urging me to. I think it's not just me. So many of us mothers fall into that trap. We steal fifteen minutes whilst our baby naps, keep an eye on the clock, and secretly search for the girl we used to be before motherhood. The one with uninterrupted thoughts, slimmer version of herself, full nights of sleep, and only herself to look after. We tell ourselves that healing means digging up that old version and piecing her back together, and honestly this episodes does not happen once, twice thrice, but a lot! Like over and over again. Today, whilst waiting for Idris to wake up, I sat down and started writing: “I am reprogramming myself. I don’t want to find myself again, because I will never find that previous version. The correct phrase is rebuilding me. ...