{"id":7964,"date":"2013-09-20T20:03:32","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T12:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/?p=7964"},"modified":"2013-09-20T20:55:03","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T12:55:03","slug":"another-year-older","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/another-year-older\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Year Older"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, today is my birthday anniversary. Don\u2019t ask how old I am now. It doesn\u2019t really matter. In a conservative environment, people would raise their eyebrows when they know that I am still not married at this age. It\u2019s not really so much of an issue back in Sabah or at least in the town that I came from where the trend of late-marriages is quite normal.<\/p>\n

\"birthday<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got many friends, cousins and relatives who are still not married at about the same age as mine. Some got married because they got somebody pregnant. Some got married because \u2013 well \u2013 living in a small town or a village with nothing much to do, what else can they do right? Starting a family to complete the circle of life as they call it.<\/p>\n

Here in the Peninsular of Malaysia especially among Malays, somehow people tend to give me the surprised look when I tell them that I am still not married. May be they\u2019d think that I\u2019m either impotent or gay. Their judging looks would linger on me for awhile. I am so used to it now so it doesn\u2019t bother me as much it used to.<\/p>\n

The fact is, I might have dated more girls than most of them had. I just did not live a traditional life<\/strong>. I could simply get married and if I\u2019m lucky enough, have kids and splash their pictures all over facebook<\/em> every now and then as if people do really care in the world about how they look.<\/p>\n

But that was not quite the plan. There are times when I don\u2019t see the need of getting married apart from the privilege of having sex that is religiously legal and probably investing in children so that there\u2019d be somebody to take care of me when I am too old to take care of myself.<\/p>\n

\"old-couple-in-love\"<\/a>
Source : http:\/\/sacredembrace.org\/2013\/01\/26\/love-for-the-long-haul-by-susan-vogt\/old-couple-in-love\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Most people get married to fulfill the need for companionship. I see the points \u2013 crystal clear. But the question is \u2013 am I ready for the lifetime commitment? As a Catholic, I\u2019m only allowed to get married once in life. There\u2019s no turning point. Once I am in, I am in for the rest of my life \u2013 unless of course my spouse dies. \u00a0In today\u2019s world, male spouses are known to die earlier than their female partners so the chances of getting married again are very slim. Heh.<\/p>\n

I do enjoy my life now. Probably too much. \u00a0I\u2019m surrounded by wonderful people. I\u2019ve never run out of friends to hang out with over weekends. May be I don\u2019t quite see the beauties in a marriage unless I get married myself. I\u2019ll leave that to be discovered when the time has come.<\/p>\n

May be I can simply say that I am not ready. The fact that I\u2019ve got quite a number of friends who engage in extra-marital affairs doesn\u2019t help much either. They seem to take pride in their ability to take somebody to bed without their wives finding out about it. Ironically, they are the ones who keep telling me that I should be married by now. Heh. What a funny world we are living in.<\/p>\n

I was born with so many things that I wanted to fulfill in life. I\u2019d blame it on all the reading that I did when I was a kid. As I grew older, I had found out that while not all of them were doable, most of them actually were (doable).<\/p>\n

I\u2019d take traveling for an example. I used to believe that was born in the wrong corner of the world, that I was supposedly born to a farming family somewhere in England \u2013 or probably Switzerland. I\u2019d write letters to an imaginary uncle of mine, whom I called Uncle John<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d imagine myself walking across a hayfield, in the direction of a jingling bell from a nearby church. I\u2019d imagine it was spring when all the flowers were blossoming. I\u2019d stop to catch my breath, inhaling the freshness of the air and the smell of the flowers.<\/p>\n

Of course I never got to meet this Uncle John, because he did not exist. But I did however fulfill my dream of walking across a hay-field. In Spring. \ud83d\ude1b And of course, I had come to terms with the fact that I was born in Sabah<\/strong>, on the North of Borneo Island<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 something that I am so proud of now that I know how lucky I actually was.<\/p>\n

But one travel trip had started it all. It had sparked the interest in doing more and more travel trips. There\u2019s something so fulfilling about striking something off the bucket list<\/strong><\/a> every time I returned home from a travel trip. It just feels so wonderful.<\/p>\n

\"me<\/a><\/p>\n

But through my personal observation, those who travel a lot tend to get married late. You see, there\u2019s a saying among travelers that when you travel, your priorities change. You\u2019ll see at life from a different perspective and view.<\/p>\n

I know a few friends who called off their weddings because they were not ready to give up traveling over a marriage. Of course you can still travel when you are married but it won\u2019t be the same \u2013 or so they say.<\/p>\n

So, am I ready to give up traveling? The answer is NO. I might get old traveling.<\/p>\n

For now, I\u2019ll just enjoy life all the things that come with it.<\/p>\n

For now, I\u2019ll just enjoy the new age of mine and thank God for all the blessings that he has showered me with.<\/p>\n

How old was I again? Never mind. It doesn\u2019t really matter \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, today is my birthday anniversary. Don\u2019t ask how old I am now. It doesn\u2019t really matter. In a conservative environment, people would raise their eyebrows when they know that I am still not married at this age. It\u2019s not really so much of an issue back in Sabah or at least in the town that I came from where the trend of late-marriages is quite normal. I\u2019ve got many friends, cousins and relatives who are still not married at…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[120,165],"class_list":["post-7964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-birthday","tag-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7964"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7979,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7964\/revisions\/7979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jipp-world.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}