For about three months now, I've basically been a tai tai (太太): - noun 1. A term used in Chinese circles for supreme wife (implying situation where a man is wealthy enough to have several “wives’) but no longer strictly interpreted. Term now applies to citizens of the world with an Asian viewpoint who have bounds of time and money. A Tai Tai is a privileged lady of means. To qualify as a Tai Tai, one has to have lots of leisure time, lots of money to spend and lots of gossip to exchange.
Honestly - it's been kind of fantastic. I spent the first month preparing for and planning the finer details of our wedding, which was a true Godsend, time-wise. Then I spent a week engrossed in wedding festivities in Bali, a week with my family in Korea, a week in Spain with P, a couple weeks in Cali and a couple weeks in HK playing housewife. It's been an amazing "summer vacation" where I got to live the life of a tai tai - carefree, jet-setting, responsibility-less. But the thing about being a tai tai is that I felt busy all the time. I never spent any time sitting on the couch watching TV - I was always out and about, running errands, meeting people, taking care of household stuff, doing laundry and cooking (a true tai tai wouldn't do that, they'd leave it all to the helper), traveling, etc. Being a tai tai was a full-time job - yes, a spoiled and not-grounded-in-reality full-time job, but a full-time job nonetheless. It's been so time-consuming that I find myself wondering - how did I take care of all this crap when I had a real full-time job? That is - the errands such as grocery shopping, dry cleaning, changing lightbulbs, taking care of bills, picking up packages, writing thank you notes, grooming (mani/pedis, facials), etc. All of that stuff ends up taking an ENTIRE day, if you add in meeting a friend for lunch and hitting the gym for an hour. My life as a tai tai has not been idle.
In two weeks, my life as a tai tai will officially be coming to an end as I start my new job. I am really excited about my new role - it's everything I wanted in a job (at least description-wise) and I plan to work my butt off to prove myself useful to the company. And I feel a wave of relief and excitement at the idea of once again having a very rigid structure to my day - a time by which I need to be at the office, meetings, deadlines. But of course there's also a part of me that is sad to be saying goodbye to the utterly spoiled life I lived for the past 3 months - it was a dream, a gift from the universe for which I will always be grateful: it was a period in my life where I got to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted with absolutely no worries about time or money. I realize I'll probably never have that specific type of luxury ever again - a time when I can be so utterly...selfish. And because I deeply believe in the balance of the universe, and that God is a loving but fair God, it's my honest belief that God gave me the past three months as a gift to be selfish and indulgent, in preparation for the next phase of my life, which will not have any room for selfishness or self-indulgence. That is to say: motherhood.
I'm not preggers, nor are we trying yet, but that is the next natural step in my life, and I feel ready. And I think I really needed a period where I was allowed to be totally and utterly selfish and self-indulgent, so I could get it out of my system and prepare myself to be totally and utterly giving and loving to my future children, without any resentment. Thank you baby Jesus for the wonderful gift of the last three months (and another 2 weeks to go!).
Honestly - it's been kind of fantastic. I spent the first month preparing for and planning the finer details of our wedding, which was a true Godsend, time-wise. Then I spent a week engrossed in wedding festivities in Bali, a week with my family in Korea, a week in Spain with P, a couple weeks in Cali and a couple weeks in HK playing housewife. It's been an amazing "summer vacation" where I got to live the life of a tai tai - carefree, jet-setting, responsibility-less. But the thing about being a tai tai is that I felt busy all the time. I never spent any time sitting on the couch watching TV - I was always out and about, running errands, meeting people, taking care of household stuff, doing laundry and cooking (a true tai tai wouldn't do that, they'd leave it all to the helper), traveling, etc. Being a tai tai was a full-time job - yes, a spoiled and not-grounded-in-reality full-time job, but a full-time job nonetheless. It's been so time-consuming that I find myself wondering - how did I take care of all this crap when I had a real full-time job? That is - the errands such as grocery shopping, dry cleaning, changing lightbulbs, taking care of bills, picking up packages, writing thank you notes, grooming (mani/pedis, facials), etc. All of that stuff ends up taking an ENTIRE day, if you add in meeting a friend for lunch and hitting the gym for an hour. My life as a tai tai has not been idle.
In two weeks, my life as a tai tai will officially be coming to an end as I start my new job. I am really excited about my new role - it's everything I wanted in a job (at least description-wise) and I plan to work my butt off to prove myself useful to the company. And I feel a wave of relief and excitement at the idea of once again having a very rigid structure to my day - a time by which I need to be at the office, meetings, deadlines. But of course there's also a part of me that is sad to be saying goodbye to the utterly spoiled life I lived for the past 3 months - it was a dream, a gift from the universe for which I will always be grateful: it was a period in my life where I got to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted with absolutely no worries about time or money. I realize I'll probably never have that specific type of luxury ever again - a time when I can be so utterly...selfish. And because I deeply believe in the balance of the universe, and that God is a loving but fair God, it's my honest belief that God gave me the past three months as a gift to be selfish and indulgent, in preparation for the next phase of my life, which will not have any room for selfishness or self-indulgence. That is to say: motherhood.
I'm not preggers, nor are we trying yet, but that is the next natural step in my life, and I feel ready. And I think I really needed a period where I was allowed to be totally and utterly selfish and self-indulgent, so I could get it out of my system and prepare myself to be totally and utterly giving and loving to my future children, without any resentment. Thank you baby Jesus for the wonderful gift of the last three months (and another 2 weeks to go!).
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