REALISING A DREAM

I HAVE climbed the high tower of Yeat’s Thoor Ballylee, the Tower house and surveyed the terrain of my life.
Nearby at Coole Lake, white swans gracefully swim with cygnets in tow. The air is fresh and crisp. Hundred-year-old trees line the countryside road, and the
smell of oven-baked soda bread fills the air. Wild daisies throng the road and fields of lavender overwhelm me. The images seem to jump up from a storybook or a movie like P.S. I Love You.
Deciding to leave a profession that I had enjoyed for 27 years is a gargantuan task of resolve and determination. The day I handed in my optional retirement papers, close friends screamed, “You are too young”, “I’m so envious” and “What a loss to Malaysia” and my students cried “The university will die without you”.

Knowing that I was entering a lecture hall for that final lecture and listening to students crooning farewell songs could bring a tear even to a glass eye.

Some of my colleagues tapped me on my shoulder and said, “Brave girl, I wish I could do the same”.
Indeed it was a big step, taken after careful planning and building up the nest egg.

Women in my mother’s day hardly went out to work. They could only officially retire when they leave the world. Since young, my motto has always been to excel
in what I do. Some call me a perfectionist, but I prefer to see it as trying to perfect whatever I do, to learn from my mistakes and not to be too harsh on another or worse still, take a moral stand and judge others with my limited mortal eye.

I can remember that my original dream was to be a homemaker, a wife and a mother. Somehow, I have this affinity with all things related to housekeeping and child rearing. But like any other young person who never made it to the
Forbes list of the richest people in America, I had to join the workforce.

The students were wonderful. The admiration was great. The floodlights, the microphone and the audience made it all very tantalising.

The pretty kebayas, the good money and grand dinners made the adrenalin rush.

The best was seeing one’s name in the newspaper, in journals and in books.

But then again….. It is only when we dare to leave the old that we can embrace the new. If Columbus had not left his homeland, America would not have been discovered.

When something extraordinary happens in the lives of ordinary people, it is worth every sacrifice of the familiar to welcome the challenge that lies ahead.

Like trading in the regional driving licence for a more expensive international one. Having been so used to cruising along concrete nondescript highways, I now have to learn all over again how to meander through country roads flanked by lush green meadows and the Jacobean sheep and Friesians that dot them. I would
also have to trade in my 34°C of everyday sunshine for drizzles, frost and snow.

As I celebrated the last Chinese New Year with family and friends and listened to the sounds of firecrackers and drumbeats that ushered in the Year of the Tiger, I wondered whether the Chinese New Year festival in another land would be the same?

The best part is that I am learning to savour. I am learning to take long
walks and enjoy Oscar Wilde’s writings. I am learning to spend time with the people I love and treasure the moments. I am learning that it is all right to leave behind things that once mattered — the rat race, the promotion, the glamour, the glory and the chasing after the wind. I am learning it is fine just to get to know myself. No more paper qualifications, no more applause, no more appendages to define my being.

It is a celebration of diversity where I will learn to live with a new bunch of people renowned for their wit and humour. While I’ll teach others to eat with chopsticks, I will also learn that Riverdance is not necessarily by the river.

It is summer again and a new chapter of my life has begun. I am now basking in the beauty of an idyllic county, learning how to be proud of who I am and what I have become. I am back to my original dream of being a full-time wife and mother. And I am still perfecting the art of frying sausages and hoping to catch a leprechaun.