Monday, February 19, 2007

Ghost of New Year's Past

People say couples not only sound alike, but think alike after a while. That means that Packrat and I share ideals and ideas that are similar. I think on some things we do but on the topic of Chinese New Year, we couldn't be more different.

Every year, leading up to CNY, I get extremely grumpy. Last year, on the first day of the New Year, I burst into tears and threw a tantrum befitting my 5 year old niece about having to visit. This year, I just grump-ed around a lot and whined about why we couldn't be like any other 30 something married couple and scoot off for the long weekend, especially since it would be the last time we could do that before the offspring come into the picture.

I don't know why I hate the festive season. I've tried to explain it to Packrat but it inadvertently sounds lame, even to my ears. He loves it because he gets to see everyone, marvel at how much the cousin's have grown and eat lots of junk food. I hate it because it's always hot, there's always the juggling act of trying to make sure that both sides of the family get enough air time of us lest they feel neglected. That means a whole lot of driving up and down the island and add to all this, our car has a temperamental air conditioner that chooses the most inopportune time not to work i.e. yesterday when temperatures soared to a 33 degree high, guaranteeing a headache the size of Alaska for me, further contributing to my grumpiness and this extremely long sentence.

I have named the headache the traditional CNY headache because I realised last year, I had one too and it had nothing to do with the teary outburst of the tantrum.

Anyhow, when I thought long and hard about it, I realised that disliking CNY is a relatively new phenomenon to me. I think it reared it's head round about the time I got married, save the one year that I spent CNY in Calgary which was blissful. I think I never thought much about CNY before that because CNY meant, at that point, loot! And a great amount of loot. And usually, the loot disguised all the other tensions that were brought about in me. Yes, it's very mercenary of me but it worked.

Now, when there is no loot to be got, a whole lot of loot to be lost, everything else comes to the surface. And nothing cushions the blow. Well, thankfully, this year, we were excused from visiting the one family that I dread visiting on account of me being pregnant and easily tired. Thank goodness for little blessings. :) And thankfully, I got to spend most of today at home, doing nothing and not eating CNY food. Subway is a wonderful change from the rich rich food that we eat every year for days.

Stay tuned for next year's whining. It should be even more interesting with the appearance of the offspring.
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Ondine tossed this thought in at 15:49

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