My True Love

There was once someone asking me, “Tell me, who is your true love?” I couldn’t answer it as I never thought of what ‘true love’ means. Since I didn’t know what it means, how could I answer that question??

So, tell me, what is true love??

I tried to search in Google, perhaps I could find the meaning of it. There were many descriptions mentioned in different ways, from different religions and background, making me so headache. For me, it was just too much. Hahaha… In fact, how to describe true love was indeed that much!!! Instead of describing here what true love was, I decided to just describe about my true love here, based on my own experience :)

 
My True Love

He is not necessarily handsome, but he is good-looking and well-built, strong enough to protect me and my family.

He is not necessarily highly educated, in fact he is not, but he is intelligent in many other ways (that I don’t possess) – can say that we complete each other weaknesses.

He is not rich in money, but he is rich at heart. Poor now doesn’t mean poor forever. As long the person is willing to work hard and never gives up, he will earn enough for the family's needs.

He is smoker. I don’t like him smoking, but I never ask him to quit. He is mature enough to decide what’s good for him. It’s his own life anyway. Same as he never stops me to quit drinking. Just do things what we love to do – Fair enough I guess? ;)

He doesn't own car or big house. What I need just a roof to shelter us safely. After all, we build our own house together many years after we got together. Car?? It’s not a necessity here as we are spoilt with choices and convenient public transport. After all, Singapore is just a small red dot in the globe.

Both of us, surprisingly, have different hobbies and likes in life.

He loves chatting with his sisters and mom in the living room, while I love chatting with family and friends online and browse Internet until late night.

He loves playing games, any kind of games – computer games, console games, iPhone games, etc., while I think playing games are just wasting of time. I prefer spending my time reading and blogging.

He loves and spends lots of his time watching TV and movies online while I prefer writing my diary and journal.

He loves to spend his time at home during his off-day while me? Needless to say, I love traveling as if it’s my Oxygen in life :)

He can contact and meet his best friends who live in Singapore as often as I meet my best friends who are staying overseas. Hahaha….

He speaks Hokkian (dialect) and I speak Indonesian. Although we’ve been together for more than a decade, we still can’t master the other party’s language. We don’t even bother to learn more actually. So I would be the deaf when he was conversing in Hokkian with his family members and he would be the deaf when I was conversing in Indonesian with my family members ^^

He loves cold while I prefer to hide under my blanket. Because of this we often fight 'not to turn the fan on' since the air-con is on, before we both fell asleep :P

Sometimes I wonder, with so many differences, how come we can stand to stay together for so long???

Which means, there must be similarities or something that we both enjoy doing!!!

We both love eating – in fact, most of our dating times were spent for ‘makan’ session - and we eat almost everything (He once said that it’s impossible for him to have a wife who is vegetarian, lolx!)

We both believe in same religion. I first fell in love with him when I saw the mini Buddha’s statue in his van (working’s vehicle). I was surprised that he was a Buddhist, which was beyond my expectation in finding my partner in life :) 

We both encourage each other using Buddhist's teachings. There were times we were troubled with things around us. At times, we would remind each other about what Buddha taught us and tried to apply it in our situation, and then, we would feel much better. I came to understand the importance of a couple having the same belief in life and how much they commit to follow the teaching in their lives.

We both respect each other’s family members and believe the importance of family's values. I lived with all of his family members after since I committed the rest of my life with him. I had to respect all, old and young (including the family’s pet), in order to live in peace and harmony. He, too, respects all my family members, spares his time to meet them when they visit us in Singapore, be friendly, and helps each other when required.

We both love to live in harmony. We did quarrel once in a while. However, we usually took some time to calm down and think over. After a while, we would apologize (when we realized it was our mistakes), and find a solution to ease the problem.

We both believe to share our happiness by doing good to others. We never had a thought of harming others. It was not in our dictionary. Dalai Lama once said, “If you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.” We keep this spirit up!

Other than that, he has many other things I admire.

 Here is the list of things on what I love about him:

He is loyal – I feel very very very secure with him. Never had a thought that he would flirt or date around, even when I wasn’t around (traveling abroad). One word to describe is “TRUST” - I trust him. Not many men can be trusted in this point of time and I am glad that I found him.

He is rich at love and heart. He showers me with love and his heart. I feel so pampered!!!

He always finds ways to make me happy and smile :) He often shows me his ugly face, his ugly reaction, his ugly dance, shows off his fat and muscles just like the Johnny Bravo, imitates others, just to see me smile and laugh. Thank you dear! It means a lot to me.

He is responsible, as a son, as a husband, as a father, as a person, and as an employee. He has been taken care his family members well. In fact, that was the first thing I needed to know before deciding to spend the rest of my life with him. If he didn’t know how to take care his family members well, how could he take care of me and my children in the future?? He takes ownership into his job and very responsible in taking care his Boss's needs and requirements.

He is my translator. Whenever I received forwarded email from my Chinese friends, or looked at the article written by someone in Chinese that I wanted to know but I didn’t know what it meant, I would ask him to translate it for me. He would be gladly translating it for me. Sometimes, he used the tone as if he was the writer to make it sounded much more interesting – again, to make me smile and laugh :)

He is a good cleaner. He cleans many things in house as per his mood. But generally he is willing to do all that. He wipes, sweeps, mops, washes, and so on. He helps me ironing my working clothes too whenever I had no time to do it.

He is a good technician and mechanic at home. He repaired the blinking light-bulb, broken appliances and haywire chain of my bike, replaced battery of my bicycle’s lights, glued the unattached things, pumped my bicycle’s tyres, and so on. Whatever things spoilt or not working, I usually just handed the things over to him and he would settle it all for me, just like a magician!!! He always built our IKEA furniture too, he treated it just like a Lego. Honestly, I can’t imagine my life without him :(

He knows I love freedom and he gave me lots of freedom. He knows I love to travel, and he let me fulfill my dreams and wishes as long as it’s a safe place to go and with trusted companions.

He is a good cook! Not saying a great Chef, but when his mood came, he could whip the dish out and I was lucky being able to taste that food too :) He is willing to cook and reheat the dishes too after I have a long tiring day at work. Thank you dear!

He is a great massager!!! How many men are willing to massage their wives’ back?? Even after more than a decade, he is still willing to do it when being asked. Lucky me!!!

I have this ‘like’, which is being ‘geli’ – in Indonesian, or ‘ticklish’ on my back. Many people can’t stand the ticklish feeling, but weirdly, I enjoy it very much. He knows that I love the feeling. So sometimes, before sleep, he will tickle my back slowly. It makes me feeling relaxed and faster to fall asleep.

Have you ever heard the cuddle service in Japan?? I save so much money on it as I have him to cuddle me from the back before sleeping. I feel safe and secure with his arms around me. The feeling is really good!!!

He has big palms. I thought my palms are big enough for woman that sometimes it might exceed man’s palms. However, his palms are very much bigger and thicker than mine. That’s one thing that I love from him. When he holds my hand, I feel myself all safe and secure, that he will protect me from anything!!

We love to have conversation before sleeping, if we were not tired yet. We could talk about many things we faced in life. It feels great when you have someone who understands how you feel and gives you his opinions on how to handle the situation. Communication is the key in having a good relationship! When we both were tired,  we would say 'Good night' and we both understood that it was our signals to sleep and stop all the conversation :)

Most of all, everything that he did was for my happiness. He wouldn’t rest in peace if he knew I needed something and it hadn’t been done yet. He would keep thinking about it and tried to settle it as fast as possible. 

He fulfilled his promise too. I never ask him to promise me about anything since I don’t like to feel disappointed if the promise is just coming out from the mouth but not from the action. It wasn’t an easy task and needed big sacrifice. However, he did what he promised me to. Well done!

Our very first photo :)

After reading the above, I can tell everyone who my true love is now. He is none other than my dear hubby. Thank you dear Laogong for all things that you have done to me. I feel grateful having you around in my life. Compared to you, I feel like I have done nothing much for you hehe… Hope you don’t get tired and bored doing all these to me. Thank you, thank you, and thank you!!!

Below was taken from thebuddhistblog.blogspot.com:

“There are many kinds of love. We should examine closely the nature of each kind of love. Life has a great need of the presence of love, but not the sort of love that is based on lust, passion, attachment, discrimination, and prejudice. If you want your loved ones to be happy, you must learn to understand their sufferings and aspirations. When you understand, you will know how to relieve their sufferings and how to help them fulfill their aspirations. That is true love. If you only want you loved ones to follow your own ideas and you remain ignorant of their needs, it is not truly love. It is only a desire to possess another and attempt to fulfill your own needs, which cannot be fulfilled in that way.”