A Touch of Love

You know one of those days when you feel like you're not performing that well at work, but then out of the blue someone gives you a positive feedback? I had one of those days a while ago. I was feeling hormonal and grumpy inside. In short I wasn't the most patient worker that day. At the end of my shift, I was chatting up with a customer when another regular one came over and gave me one positive feedback after another in front of the other customer and the other customer kept on agreeing. At first I could say thank you in a clear voice, but after a while I couldn't hold back my tears and couldn't even say thank you properly. Thankfully I had tissue ready in my pocket, so I could dab my eyes with it.

The customers were tactful enough to change the topic when they noticed that I was getting teary-eyed and was struggling to speak. All the way home I had a hard time keeping my tears from falling down. The moment I arrived home, I was practically sobbing. I was so touched by that customer's words and was grateful for the mental boost. The encounter made me realize that deep inside, even though I knew I wasn't performing that well that day, those unexpected words were exactly what I needed to hear. Even now as I'm typing these words, I start crying again.

It's amazing what a touch of loving kindness can do to another human being. All I can do is try to give my best, learn from my mistakes, and pay it forward.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! 💟💟💟

I'll end this post with this beautiful song..."When Love Takes You In" by Steven Curtis Chapman.

Bittersweet Tears

Before I share the post, I'd like to add a note first...this post below was posted in my IF blog, but I want to share this beautiful moment here. If anyone of you wonders why I keep writing about my IF journey and why infertility is still an important part of my life even though we've moved on and we've surrendered to life without kids, let me sum it up this way: it's like the opposite of parenting.

When you're a parent (and I'm talking about parents who're involved in their kids' lives), you're bound to think about your kids and their lives, their friends, etc. And your life's peppered with parenting thoughts and joy and problems in your kids' lives as well and their life events. Infertility is that way, too. It changes my life in ways that the arrival of kids change the life of parents. My life is peppered with infertility-related thoughts and I choose it that way. I want to learn whatever I can learn from infertility. I want to learn about my pain triggers and I want to embrace them and hug them and make them feel better. If I'm incapable of doing that, then I'll pray to God to help me heal. Mind you, this post for me isn't a sad one, but a happy one. So rejoice with me, will you? :-D

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The other day I think I had my first experience of crying with so much gratitude that my heart felt like it was going to burst mixed with some grief over the losses of a life as a non-mother. It was bittersweet. The tears didn't run too long, but it was cleansing. :-)


The triggers? 

The gratitude came from hearing positive feedback about myself from different people including from MIL. I was SO touched and thankful to be able to hear those words, but at the same time I realized how much more they meant to me because I'm not a mother. Only after I heard the words did I realize that I had actually been waiting for some confirmation that I was doing something right as a non-mom. Like I was secretly wishing that the universe would give me signs that what I was doing in the community was enough even if I could never become a mother.

The grief came much later that day while I was reading a manga series that dealt with cute little twins (a boy and a girl) that I had subscribed to (I had been reading it since ages ago and it's still not finished yet). Reading about their antics and how they grew not just in size but also in many different areas in life made me feel sad because I could never watch my own child(ren) grow. And that was when I remembered the positive feedback from all those people which counterbalanced my grief. It felt surreal. 

It was probably the first time when I cried tears of grief that didn't weigh upon my chest. Instead, the feeling of gratitude gave the grief some wings...After they held me in their embrace for a little while, off they flew, leaving me sighing contentedly.

Tears of Joy

*cross-posted with my IF blog - modified a little*

A few weeks ago hubby was rearranging some stuff in our living room cabinets. He was moving some stuff when he decided to browse through our wedding album again. He had a joyful, sentimental smile on his face while he leafed through the album and then he said, "Oh look, what a cute girl!"

He leafed through some more pages and said with a cheeky smile, "Lucky bastard!" (referring to himself jokingly)

I smiled, too...after he finished browsing through the album, he came towards me (who was at that time lying down on our soft, comfortable sofa-bed) and hugged me and said "I love you" in such a way that made my heart flutter.

I couldn't help the tears from flowing. It was a LONG journey for us until we could be together as husband-and-wife and we've managed to kick IF in the butt by not letting it go between us and our love. With tears free-flowing on my cheeks, I hugged him, kissed him, and said, "I love you too. Look where are are now! I can't believe it's over 10 years ago when we first got in touch with each other through the internet."

He let me go, looked me in my eyes, wiped my tears, and said, "Don't cry!"

I replied, "But these are tears of joy. I'm just happy!"

We hugged and kissed some more...moments like these are really precious...Looking back at what we've gone through to reach this point has made me realized how ABUNDANT God's blessings have been for us. And my heart is full of gratitude...because I have my beloved, precious hubby with me.

I knew I loved him before I met him...I hope we can keep growing closer to each other as time goes by NO MATTER WHAT comes our way.


glitter-graphics.com

Flash Back: More Tears

After doing the meme yesterday, I suddenly remembered something else that happened while hubby and I were apart for 4 months after our wedding and honeymoon.

Let me give you a short timeline:

March 2004 - We met for the first time and we were together for 2 weeks.
October/November 2006 - He came to Indonesia to marry me on November 3rd. He stayed in Indo for about 3 weeks.
March 2007 - I moved to Finland.

Our wedding night felt...surreal in a way. After he helped me take over 50 pins off my hair, I thought to myself, "Now we're really husband and wife? Now we can make love? Really?" It just felt strange, especially since we had been apart for 2 years and 7 months prior to our wedding night. Our first love-making was funny and also sweet he he he he he...It was so hard to "do it", so to speak HI HI HI HI HI HI...but we managed to do it in the end after a few laughs! LOL!!!

Now I get sidetracked. After he got back home to Finland, we resorted back to chatting and calling each other up. Since it was SO hellish for us to be apart, I decided to say, "I love you" over and over and over again right when he picked up the phone to cheer him up. I was already smiling even before I dialed his number, thinking that he would laugh...

You know what happened when I kept on saying "I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you..." right after he picked up the phone?

Silence. Total silence.

I was confused. I stopped saying the words and I said, "Hello? Are you still there?"

I heard a very small voice, choked in tears, "Yeeessss...?"

Dear Lord!!! I made him CRYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to hold him right then and there and tell him that everything would be okay, but I couldn't. I wanted to cry so hard, but I was afraid it'd make him even sadder. After all, you'll feel sadder when your loved one is sad, right? So I tried to be strong and I let him calm down while I babbled to calm him down so that he didn't have to speak since I knew he couldn't speak yet.

Ahhhhh...I never want to go through that again, even though now it's become such a TOUCHING memory. Gosh, I REALLY love that guy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I'm HAPPY 'coz now I can hug him whenever I want to. YIIIPPPPPPPPIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!! ;-D

glitter-graphics.com

3BT: July 23, 2007

1. A small shower spray for "private parts" in the toilet. Gladly even in public places there are mostly those shower sprays. I just LOVE THEM!!!

2. Tears. I'm GLAD God gives us tears to express our emotions.

3. Bluebells. I don't know the name of the flower, but they're blue and they're like cute little bells. I should take my digicam out someday to take a pic of them. They're SO LOVELY!!!

4. Oven. I just realized that not everybody has an oven, so that's also a privilege as I can experiment on baking stuff.