Real Love

Today is the second day of the Chinese New Year public holiday in Malaysia. I am currently lounging at home with Insyirah, although Insyirah won't exactly allow me to lounge around when I'm with her alone at home. When I'm at home, she gets rather restless when I'm out of her sight. She'll be clinging on me all the time, which makes it rather difficult for me to do anything else. It's 'Abah do this' and 'Abah do that' all the time, with me being clueless most of the time of what she wants. Being a parent apparently requires you to have the skill to decipher your child's language, mood swings, and things which you could not deal with your normal understanding of good reason. Because to children, good reason is when they get what they want, even though they themselves do not know what they are. You get what I mean?

At the point of writing, I'm sitting in front of the TV with Insyirah watching the Tigger and Pooh Movie on Playhouse Disney, Insyirah doing so while sucking milk from her bottle. She's temporarily distracted, which leaves me with some little time to write this post. She has one hand holding the sarong I'm wearing, for extra certainty that I won't be going anywhere. Hehe... well, I've always wanted a girl to want me to be around so badly. I guess now I get my wish.

Songs and Nostalgias

Anyways, I have been in a rather nostalgic mood of late. I'm not quite sure what triggers it, although I suspect the stress that is created from my work at the office might be the reason. I've found out that when I'm so stressed out, some old memories will suddenly surface to my consciousness. It is like the stress is trying to use up all the resources of my mental capability that it pushes out some memories which are in the archive of my mind. Some memories dates back from as far as my days in kindergarten, and some are melancholic in nature like the lonely days when I was in a public boarding school in the UK doing my A-levels. These memories come back to me in dreamlike replays. And some of them do have the effects of stirring the emotion to some extent.

Dogged by this feeling of reminiscing old memories, I have been browsing e-snips to search for some songs I used to listen in the past. You know how songs have the effect of stirring old memories? I would listen to some songs that I used to listen in the past, and I would almost instantly get flashbacks of certain past events, and the emotions that I felt back then. For instance, whenever I hear Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On', I could almost feel the same winter chill in London in December 1997, the same loneliness of being in isolation, the same feeling of being deserted, just a few days after the girl I had a crush on dumped me for my room mate. There will be more on this story at another time. My point is that songs do have that funny effect of playing with your emotions and stirring old memories, to almost a physical extent.

So while browsing through e-snips today, I came across the Beatles' Real Love, a song the legendary British group recorded in the mid 1990s when they reunited temporarily. I was in my first year in the UK at the time, and it was during the Easter holidays when I first heard the song. I was staying with friends in the apartment rented by our scholarship sponsors in Bayswater London, and I remember those days to be one of the most carefree moments in my life. There were no such worries about work, no heavy responsibilities, and no one depending upon you. It was all about looking forward to the next day, and enjoying the spring in the UK. I remember waking up listening to the song, to the smell of the burning heater in our cold apartment rooms, and having a bowl of Kellog's Crunchy Nut for breakfast. Everyday during the Easter holidays was either about playing football at Hyde Park, or going to the movies at Whiteley's. Those really were the days...

My Real Loves

Apart from it's nostalgic value, the song also has such a meaningful lyric. It speaks / implies of finding true love, and that the purpose of our whole life is probably to wait for that true love of ours to find us. All my life, I have only probably experienced that feeling of arrival, of my true love finding me, twice. And even then I was caught by surprise by those moments.

When did I know I loved my wife? I was about to board a plane to the UK for my brother's graduation in July 2004. I had yet to marry my wife back then, we were engaged and about to be married in September. We had never separated for very long since our engagement. Given that we work in the same place, we would get to see each other almost every day. My going to the UK meant I would not be seeing her for 2 weeks. It didn't appear to matter much to me at first. Until I spoke to her over the phone before boarding the plane.

It began like a casual conversation, and the normal stuffs you would say when saying goodbye. But when I was about to end the conversation, a sudden choking feeling overcame me, and I felt a lump forming in my throat. I said my last goodbye before boarding the plane with my voice shaking, and with some tears welling in my eyes. For the first time ever, I shed a tear over a girl. And it was only a goodbye over 2 weeks! My feelings have been taken hostage by her since then, and I've not spent time apart from her for more than a day without feeling miserable. I knew then as I know now, that my real love has arrived.

And the only other time that feeling has been topped or equalled? Of course, when Insyirah came to our lives. The feelings that I have over my daughter can only be described as magical, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for her. A father's love for his child is one that needs to be experienced to be understood. It will change your values to the core. It turns you into a totally new man altogether. I guess, real love does that to most of us.

I have to go. Insyirah is now crying out for her favourite snack, the banana.

Here's the Beatles' Real Love. My tribute to the loves of my life.

My lovely wife.
My beautiful daughter.



(Tip to listen to the song: Click pause at the page default music widget at the right bottom of the side bar before clicking on play on the above widget to avoid the 2 music overlapping. TQ!)

Real Love
by The Beatles

All my little plans and schemes
Lost like some forgotten dream
Seems like all I really was doing
Was waiting for you

Just like little girls and boys
Playing with their little toys
Seems like all they
really were doing
Was waiting for love

Don't need to be alone
No need to be alone

It's real love
It's real, yes it's real love
It's real

From this moment on I know
Exactly where my life will go
Seems that all I really was doing
Was waiting for love

Don't need to be afraid
No need to be afraid

It's real love
It's real, yes it's real love
It's real

Thought I'd been in love before,
But in my heart I wanted more
Seems like all I really was doing
Was waiting for you

Don't need to be alone
No need to be alone

It's real love
Yes it's real, yes it's real love
It's real, yes it's real love...