You don't have to try so hard

Going back home always brought me with a special feeling.
Been parting from home over many years always makes me feeling nostalgic.
I noticed every differences it had every time I was on my way home from the airport.
The roadside that used to be greeneries, now it had been built with high floor concretes.
The big stadium that used to be the ground for us playing sport or holding other events - the spot where I was caught by police when I rode my motorbike with no helmet on passenger side - had been changed into stretches of shopping malls, hotel and offices.
I didn't know if I should laugh or cry,
but I definitely missed so much what I used to call home.

"Put your make up on
Get your nails done
Curl your hair
Run the extra mile
Keep it slim
So they like you. Do they like you?

Get your sexy on
Don't be shy, girl
Take it off
This is what you want, to belong
So they like you. Do you like you?"

The music was played from the radio inside the salon that I brought my son into.
It was very crowded, as crowded as the wet market.
It's the eve of Chinese New Year and everyone wanted to impress their relatives and friends with their new haircut or hairstyles.
Curly hairs, straight hairs, bob cut, fringe mode on, and many more.
Manicure, pedicure, creambath, and massages.
All could be done at the same time.
Everyone who went out from that door turned beautifully and glamorous.
They looked just like a superstar!

I looked myself in the mirror.
My unsophisticated shoulder length hair, a bit messy here and there due to change of my fringe parting;
A plain face with no make up on;
Wearing my faded color old t-shirt and homey short pants;
Holding an auntie's cloth handbag on my hand. 
Sometimes I wondered if people would think that I was my son's maid instead of his mother. Perhaps maids would look more beautiful and presentable than me.

Should I count themselves lucky to stay in a country where things like this were cheap and affordable?
They could do this every month, every week, or even every day,
whereas my salon trip could be as rare as once-a-year event.
My one time haircut and treatment price in Singapore was like four or five times in Indonesia.
I never visited places for manicure and pedicure too as I didn't like the feeling my fingers being painted with one thick layer on it. I felt suffocated by doing so although sometimes I'd love to see the shiny colors painted on a long nail.
I didn't wear lipstick as I didn't like the dried and cracked feeling on my lips.
I never drew my eyebrow or drew lines around my eyes, because I just never bothered myself to be designed like that.
Sometimes I even wondered if I could call myself a 'woman'. 

"Get your shopping on,
At the mall,
Max your credit cards
You don't have to choose,
Buy it all
So they like you. Do they like you?"

Their car was fully equipped with branded sound systems and connected their iPhone with it.
They held branded bag from Paris, Italian branded high-heeled shoes, and wore superstar replica dress from America.
They drove that flashy big new car next to big trucks, rusty public bus filled with sweaty passengers, three-wheels noisy and smokey public transport, with beggars and street vendors along the over crowded, hole-filled road, bravely.
In a while, I was thinking, I was just thinking...
If I chose to stay in this country... would I be like one of them???

"Wait a second,
Why should you care, what they think of you
When you're all alone, by yourself
Do you like you? Do you like you?

You don't have to try so hard
You don't have to give it all away
You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up
You don't have to change a single thing...

You don't have to try so hard
You don't have to bend until you break
You just have to get up, get up, get up, get up
You don't have to change a single thing
You don't have to try..."

It just took me a moment before I realized that all that was temporary and over time it would change. Instead, why don't we focus on living life meaningfully and living our lives with no regrets?

As a reminder, I shall share with the top 5 regrets of the dying:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

"Take your make up off
Let your hair down
Take a breath
Look into the mirror, at yourself
Don't you like you?
Cause I like you"

And yes, I like you..., said me, looking at the mirror, once again.
I love just being me, just the way I am :)