February, a rhapsody of love.

Welcome to the month of love! Happy February!

It is fairly obvious to all of us that February is legendary as the month of love. The atmosphere of February is always filled with love, joy and lots of celebration for me and my loved ones especially this year. February has been a blessing for me with an opportunity to foster closer bonding with your loved ones that ignites a passion in your soul. I see it as a reason to appreciate the little moments that put a smile on your face and colors the life. It is a chance for us to show that love for someone in this celebrated month (even though you express your love everyday throughout the year).

There is something special in February. And this year was extra special since I and my husband both will be celebrating our birthday (my big 30) + Valentine’s Day. While I am not a fan of the overly sensational display of affection in just one day but I love the softer sentiment hidden in this month. For me the celebration of love is not all about pricey gifts, lavish dinner, exquisite holiday although those things can all be exciting, but truly, love is more priceless than anything else.




Our long distance marriage taught us a love that is precious beyond all those sophisticated style of celebration. We rather keep it sweet and simple while keeping the spark of love alive. Little things like making a cup of coffee, a walk under the moonlight, a pleasant dinner and movie marathon in the embrace of your loved ones are simply precious and that holds close to your heart. These little invisible acts of love come from the bottom of the heart and this is the true love.

Certainly we can’t run away from the worldly gifts to pamper our loved ones but it should be something that adds a little more touch to the love being celebrated. Honestly, I can’t wait to celebrate the joy of love to show my loved ones, well that I love them to bits. And expressing your life is always a good thing no matter what month it is. I will be taking pleasure to spread the love all over. Cheers February!

Our First Wedding Anniversary!

A year ago today, I married my love of my life, Raj.

Time flies when you are having fun – and when you are with the one you love. Husband and I will be celebrating a special milestone on 29th January, our wedding anniversary. It has been an exciting 1st year and of course from today onwards, we will no longer get the attention of a newlywed.

I can't believe it's already been a year - sometimes it seems like our wedding was just yesterday! I feel like our life has been such an incredible whirlwind so far, but that's how it's been ever since we met so I'm used to it by now ;) Raj was one of the most refreshing and wonderful things that could ever have happened to me and after about 4 years of getting to know each other, we walked down the aisle to start a new life together.
Although we spent the entire first year of marriage living hundred miles apart from one another but our hearts were always so near. Yes we encountered little challenges as we didn’t get to meet every single day yet our relationship grew stronger day by day through phone conversations. In fact, our long distance marriage raised the eyebrow of many people including family and friends. Some even made ridicule out of it. Yet I can only feel bad for them simply because the bond, mutual understanding, affection, faith and devotion that we share can out beat any other couple living together. Yes, our relationship is something precious that we cherish each and every moment despite the distance till today. The distance was never a curse but a boon for us to appreciate our bond.

I am so happy that he is my husband and that we're living our lives just the way we want, not driven by anybody else. He will always be a huge inspiration to me. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him. To the man I have chosen to love and be with me for a lifetime, Happy Anniversary! I want you to know that words are not enough to say that I love you.

It’s our one year wedding anniversary! What I’ve learned about marriage

Wedding anniversary is a time to celebrate the beauty, gift, and the blessing of our enduring love. This special day is a time to look back at the good times and a time to look ahead to live our dreams together.

Tomorrow, the 29th of January marks our big milestone, my husband and I will celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Five years since we first laid eyes on each other and we are still learning one another but thankfully, also still loving one another too. As we get ready to ring in the New Year I thought I would take a moment to share some of the lessons that were solidified for us or that we learned about our marriage and each other this year. We still have a lot of growing to do but we are committed to growing together, one day at a time.

Love brought us together as husband and wife and gave each of us a best friend for life. Perhaps it sounds cliché and all but I really cherish each moments as time goes on. As I sit serenely on my balcony and looking far across the horizon, I could recall the moments leading up to my big day. I was making sure last minute wedding details were taken care of, savoring the bride-to-be pampering by my family and close knit members of the family, watching the decorations being put up, gently reminding my makeup lady and wondering anxiously about how the event of my lifetime is going to take place. It was so beautiful. And I could still feel like it was only yesterday.

Now, I am into a year of marriage with the man of my life, Raj and couldn’t ask for a better soul mate. So what have I learned within a year? For many of us, marriage is an eloquent aide memoire that on which our lives revolve around.

Even though we were halfway around the world from each other, we still learned some valuable lessons about marriage. Here’s to another year of love and lessons learned after one year of marriage!

Grow Separately but Not Apart

One of the most valuable lessons that I learnt and taught people around me is about growing separately but not apart. I believe it's pertinent to my marriage as many twitch when they hear about my long distance marriage. In fact some even ridicule that we are ‘living apart’ after marriage. It is not ‘living apart’ but I would strongly say it is living independently. To my incredulity, the many that fail to understand our bonding will never understand the sanctity of our marriage until their mindset really comprehend to do so. As for both of us, we appreciate ourselves more and realize we learn more valuable lessons about marriage. The tolerance, devotion, affection and mutual understanding that we learnt and shared has brought us to where we are today. We are going to change and grow over time. But the key is to not grow apart.

Remembering our wedding vow

Each time I will be reminiscent the way I felt the day my husband and I exchanged our vow and I remember the promise of our love. It reminds me why I love my husband so much and why I chose him. Sometimes it can a splendid romantic gesture that he does for me or perhaps it’s just the little things that I have to watch out for. At the end of the day, it’s the little things that go a long way to inspire the feelings. As long as I get a little bit of that every day, everything else comes easy.

A good friend in my husband

Before getting hitched, both of us are best of friends. We spend time together and always make an effort to be there for each other when needed. The more we treat each other as friends, life is more fun. Both of us laugh together, confide in one another, share our happiness and sadness, keep each other’s secrets and do things that we both love to do. It makes a huge difference as we both continue to relish our lives as time goes on.

Re-live our Romantic Rendezvous

Even after marriage, we both continue to date like how we used to be in our early days of courtship. The relationship blossoms with every moment spent to re-live our dating days and make us feel younger too. Raj always impresses me with even the little things he does for me out of blue and makes effort to create sparks in our bond like before. I hope to do the same for him more in future.

Appreciative of our life

Life is so beautiful. Yet life is never like a bed of roses all the time. Keep living, loving, and moving forward one step at a time. And ever so often take a moment to look back, not to live in the past but rather, but to see how far you've come. I have come to believe to see beyond those hiccups and be grateful to be blessed with a good life and a charming husband.

Be there for each other

It’s never too difficult to stand by each other in times of need. I think being there for each other are really important and if you think you have to go an extra mile to do so, by all means, do so. Everyone loves that little boost that comes from someone you love so much. Raj and I look up to each other from time to time and we both have been a great inspiration for one another. Trust me, it works like magic.
Magnanimous for a better life
More often than not, it takes a moment to look back, not to live in the past but rather, and to see how far we have come. Life is short and time is ephemeral too. I learnt not to miss out every single moment of my life on a chance to enjoy one another. Life is all about give-n-take. So I keep living one step at a time.

So that was the very few lessons that the one year stint taught me. I’m so happy I married Raj and couldn’t have asked for a better husband. I never even thought I’d get married let alone meet a man like Raj, so really, I still pinch myself sometimes.

My pet, my little joy

When one says that a dog is a man’s best friend, I think they had a dog like Hachiko in mind. Hachiko is based on a true story and watching the movie, it totally touched my heart. I sometimes wonder how an animal can be so faithful to its master when it is sometimes very hard for even a person to do something like that. Maybe people just need to learn the ultimate loyalty from a dog. It’s either we let go ourselves easily or we let our selfishness overcome us instead of putting ourselves in another person’s shoe and see things through their perspective, once in a while. I have a dog. He was a left astray in the park we used to work out in the evenings after the mother died mysteriously. Then the rest is his-story.

Each day as I head home after work, I will always look forward to my dog’s greet at the portico and his endeavor to amuse me with love every time I walk in the door. The calming effect of this little fella’s genuine affection as it jumps on me instantaneously brings a smile to my weary face. I am sure everyone who owns a furry pet will know that their pets are special and it brings a new hope of life. My dog has changed my life for better. After we adopted him on the even of New Year 2011, we began to see the happiness he brought to our life and a very good companion for all of us at home.

And let me tell you something, people usually believe that when you bring a new puppy to the house you need to train him and teach him stuff, I feel it’s totally the other way round… It’s the pet that teaches you treasured lessons that no one else could ever imbibe in you. A dog can really teach you unconditional love, patience, forgiveness, passion, and to never let your innocence and joy. It’s the most beautiful moments of your life when you own a dog and learn to live for him. This post is dedicated to one of the best gifts that life has endowed me with, a fury friend -Doggie!

It’s the little things that he does make a huge difference. His quirky bark when a newspaper peddler comes along, or his goofy habit of chewing the doormats in our house, we just can’t get enough of him. He can make our heart giggle in absurdity. I just can’t help but love him more when he greets me in the morning with a wet lick on my face. Whatever he does, it just melts my heart away.

There is nothing like the love of a dog. My dog would not be a celebrity dog or an expensive breed but he was a special one rescued from being starved when he was just a month old. This fella is fondly known as ‘Lucky’ since he was the only survivor among his nine siblings which died one-by-one mysteriously. The biggest despair came when he was left wandering by himself in the park when the mother was found lifeless nearby one day. My dad felt the grief of the orphaned little pup and saved him from his misery when he brought him home. The day we brought him back home, we showered him with all our affection. Since then, he trusted us with all his heart. Dogs are amazing in the sense that they are loyal, loving, protective and faithful unlike us humans. You can scold or hurt him yet he easily forgives us and put us before them. It is the most precious love in the world. A dog is truly an amazing companion.

A dog will be perfect partner to walk with you through your life, comfort you in your troubles and cheer you up when life is hard on us. Doggie’s little antics when he nudges you with a ball stuffed in his mouth calling for a play or his peculiar habit of sniffing through mom’s lovely potted plants (he loves to dig them out too!) Or even his surprising humanly behaviors, he is just too adorable for us to give him away. Everything a man has to be ideally can be learned from a dog. In a nutshell, I think dogs are the most amazing creatures that we have been blessed with.

No matter how frantic the days are, a mere woof and wag of tail will make it all go away! He loves to sit with me while gazing into my eyes that come as a huge soothing effect on any tired soul. I strongly believe it is the same loving heart that beats in every canine irrespective of the breed or pedigree. I am glad that our attention caught on this little fella roaming astray in the park even though he wasn’t an elite breed. What matters the most is the little joy he brought us. Sometimes his loyalty reminds me of Hachiko who waited for his master in front of the train station 10 years after his master had died. If only people have the same loyalty as animals, the world might be a better place. Families might not squabble over petty resentment, colleagues might not have another colleague sabotaging just to climb the corporate ladder, governments might not have opposing organizations trying to topple each other, friends might not backbite each other and the world might actually be a much friendlier, happier and serene place to live in.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing these memoirs which captured a significant part of my life. The memories made me smile and laugh.

Distance between two hearts is a test of true love

How a couple can remain close albeit living apart from each other after marriage? Each time I hear this, I wonder why it is a big deal. These are some of the questions raised by our families and friends ever since we got married recently. Is it a concern or a matter of tête-à-tête? I know some of them are genuinely concerned out of love for both of us. However, some questions in life, we don’t have an answer to it and I won’t lie that I prefer to lead the way to my life without knowing what is ahead of us.

People think that we're weird just because the belief that once you're married, you're supposed to live together. It just freaks them out. I am certain that we are not alone. Of recent times, I heard a growing number of young married couples are living apart (even in my office there are couples living apart and to my horror, they already have a baby! Can you imagine how hard this can be?). This is called the LDM (Long distance marriage) which isn’t really new. We are a young, career-driven couple, and if this is what we have to do now as long as we don’t have to do this later when we have a family already, then I’m ok with it. I would blame it on the rise of the cost of living that is the big factor of LDM.

Now, my husband and I have been married for a little more than 3 months, we both sit and reminisce what we had to endure during the dating years. And for that whole time we have essentially been in a long distance relationship. Little did we know five years ago when we got hooked up that we both will be staying apart even after wedding. I, live in uptown of KL and works as a scientist in a multinational corporation. On the other hand, Raj lives in Kulim 30km from Penang Island, where he works as an engineer. More than 400km away separates us but we are close in heart.

Raj, my husband, is a true gem. He works in the automation industry in US based company located in the heart of Kulim Hi-Tech Park. He goes out for business trip most of the time while I live and work in KL city. We are complete opposites: I am chatty, easy-going and I enjoy all things in the world of communications and science, hence why I work in the research industry and passionate leisure writer. Raj on the other hand encompasses all the personality traits of a stereotypical engineer. He is jack-of-all-trades, inquisitive of the gadgets around him, writing programme for his instruments from pretty much scratch. He is submissive at times, and will try to pose a simple solution to any question I direct his way. Although we are opposites, we complement each other with perfect fit.

I think I fell in love with him when I heard him say in the early stages of our relationship, "I want to live my life with you till my last breath”. I know it sounds cliché like some Hollywood romantic flick that I used to watch. It is cheesy pick-up line for guys to woo their girl. But I found his genuine love in his eyes and tone. He is like the romantic hero I use to admire in movies, I tell you. He very well knows how to make me happy and take good care of me. His interest in latest technology somehow entice me since we share the similar enthusiasm most often than not. He can’t spell to save his life, but I’ve seen him going all out to take good care of me. His concerns never fail to care for me. If I have had a bad day and he will be able to sense it.

I believe when we exchange the wedding vows, it simply means to love and cherish, every day of our life. True enough, it doesn’t imply that we both are physically together every day of our life. Family, friends, acquaintances—many have posed the question to me: "How do you do it, Nisha? Oh no I feel sorry for you to live apart" Or their eloquent gesture have thousand connotations. Most of the time, I shrug it off. It’s pretty annoying at times and I am getting jaded of it. Distance doesn't matter if you really love the person, what matters most is your honesty and trust for that relationship to work out.

I have cynically smiled at the funny reactions I get. Just because you do not see someone every day of your life doesn’t make them any less of your life. I truly believe in the test of our true love and it really reinforced our relationship. Despite the distance, we have a sterling tech-savvy relationship. Today’s technology allows us to talk at least more than three times per day, via Facebook, chat space or mobile phones and it just works fine for us more often than not. It keeps us connected together while we are far apart. 

We know this is not a permanent thing. My husband and I cherish the time we do have together and we are still very happy people. When we stay together, we have quality time together, and catch up with the things we left behind. We go to the movies, hop in for a long drive, enjoy late night cocktails and talk about where we would like to go for our next vacation. It's like the best of both worlds, I think. We got to spend our time together and then also apart. You appreciate the other person more when they come back. Of course it doesn't mean that we are choosing to live apart forever. The longest we have gone without seeing each other is 3 weeks. He came back probably five kgs lesser, a little shine to his face. I touched his sleek cheek and teased him that I have lost my cuddly teddy bear much to his tantrum. In fact he is becoming better looking than before!

Sometimes, even the best technology can’t help us by being together. Living apart is not something anyone hopes for. Distance living often means lonely weekends, having to attend celebrations as single, lack of shopping partner and even nothing to look forward after a long day at work. I have to admit though; this is one bandwagon I would have preferred not to have jumped on. But it’s the love for each other. We both know that despite the odds of life, we are going to have a beautiful life.

 

We learned our relationship could weather the distance and we appreciate each other more. But it wasn’t easy and certainly wasn’t something we wanted to do forever. Our family and friends think we’re crazy. I don’t think so. In some ways, I think this separation has brought about a renewed commitment to our marriage and to each other. Now, we work particularly hard at understanding one another. We don’t assume, as we once did, that we know what the other is thinking or even doing. We are looking forward to communicate in order to stay connected. Before life just gets into the way.

Of course it hasn’t been sweet and nice all the time. We’ve had our fair share of little misunderstanding but we somehow work things out mutually.  Being in a LDR takes a lot of maturity, sometimes more than either of us have. We’ve learned to give and take with each other a lot. Honey, I have always loved you before, and will always love you for time to come. We are one perfect couple although we are just not in the perfect situation and that is why they are many envying us when we both hold our hands and walked down the marriage life.

I'm engaged!

So, as of November 27th 2011, I am no longer waiting and single! I'm so glad to be engaged to my sweetheart of 4 years. HOWEVER, this past weekend was almost too much to handle. It was ecstatic moment for me (even though I was slightly anxious on how things going to happen). Here’s the good news to all: I'm engaged to be married to a truly amazing man early next year.
I could not be happier than anything to announce to all who care to know that I am getting married! (to some extend people whom are jealous of me also waiting to know; just that they got nothing to do besides poking their nose into our ass! Haha). I am very excited to have FINALLY found the man I want to share my entire life with for as long as I live. This is a very happy time in my life and I am doing my best to take it all in, and appreciate all that it is and all that he is to me.

We got “engaged” on Sunday night. The ambiance of the betrothal ceremony was close to perfection. It was around 8 am when I got up that morning in anxious state for a precious moment of my life. I was welcomed by my family members to a special treatment since I was the princess of the day. My cousins were already here to decorate the house with fairy lightings, balloons and other decorative flower. It’s like in a snap of a finger; everything was right in front of me. The flow of the event was in place just close to perfection. Everyone was singing praise over the gorgeous decoration in the temple, food was delicious despite the fact it was vegetarian and also the memorable ceremony unfold beautifully without any hiatus by God’s grace. The elders say if you have a good heart and thoughts, everything will be a blessing to us.

Confetti in the air. Love shined in our eyes. Symbol of betrothal adorned our vena amoris. Happiness blossomed in everyone’s heart. Blessings of God and genuine souls attended this ceremony. Abundance of joy. What more could I ask for? A day I would cherish till eternity.

Becoming engaged has made me suddenly aware that I feel I am seeking a new phase of life and new relationship blossomed. It means my social obligation takes me off to a different ground! I am usually uncomfortable when people that I am not extremely close with suddenly lifts the expectation to sync in future life. We are going to be sharing the atmosphere with them in social functions and also be part of them to uphold my new family name together. But this time around I myself was taken by surprise when I was feeling comfortable by my fiancé’s family members who all turn up at our engagement ceremony to bless us wholeheartedly and share the beginning of our blissful journey into marital life. All their love could be seen through their eyes and the blessings by sincere wishes welcoming me into the family. I am looking forward for a wonderful family bonding with these lovely souls in near future.

I have never been as happy and fulfilled in a relationship with a man as I am in this one. I am being treated so well, and been made to feel as loved and desired as I do, and had as much affection, acceptance, and appreciation as I receive from him. I am left wishing for nothing. In addition to that, I have always been rather surprised that a woman could literally be taken by total surprise by abundance of love & not see it coming at all in times of despair (It was in one of the family conflict, I saw him standing up for me just because some ‘smart alec’ mistreated me virtually). It leaves me wondering how much love he actually has for me and how is he going to take good care of me by making such a huge sacrifice for me. Part of what has made me feel so secure and fulfilled in my relationship is the total transparency.

Thank you Lord for giving me the man of my life!