On happiness

For a while it was bad and then good and then not so good.  There is no single year that compares to that one year circa 2009-2010 when everything was always so good even when bad things happened. Not being sentimental.  Just remembering that I too can feel alive and had felt alive for a sustained period.  Alive despite the fact that everything was good.

In this country, in this city, in this room where I work and become distracted by my work from the interesting things that should be distracting me from work, I have lost a little something.  Time, perhaps. Imagination, perhaps.

What's been happening lately?  Not much, same old.  They are burning books and banning mini skirts and jailing atheists and harassing lesbians and decrying sex education and attacking churches. The women don't want gender equality because it makes women smarter and leads to higher divorce rates. But everybody is still having sex and enjoying it, thank God. Everything good is a blessing from God, and everything bad is a result of our sins.   Mr. Right seems to think that last bit is a little unfair and innately flawed. We think that the liberal-minded Indonesians are a silent majority but suddenly Kompas releases a poll that shows about 70% of respondents want a more conservative government. Well that's swell.

This country, according to a poll by The Economist, is among the world's happiest countries. I would agree because essentially, happiness is indeed the culture.  It is not like in Russia where it is taboo to say you are happy because that would mean you have individual freedom to acquire happiness and who, in the name of dead communist warriors, gave you that right? No this is not like that. In this country you do not say you are unhappy, because that would mean that you are not grateful for what God hath bestowed upon thee. 

"How are you?"

"Alhamdulillah, thank God, I am healthy."

"And your family?"

"Alhamdulillah, they are healthy too."

You see.

So, since everything good comes from God and everything bad is a sign of ungratefulness to God, everybody wishes to have more God in their lives, in every aspect of their lives, in their spiritual, physical, sexual, and political lives. And to take it to the next level, everybody wishes to have more God in everybody else's lives.  My own mother laments and moans and complains. She worries that if I do not pray five times a day to God, how will she earn extra points to go to heaven if she is deemed to have failed to educate me in faith? And if I do not pray five times a day to God, how am I ever going to lead a happy life when God refuses to bestow me with blessings? It will be a tragedy of the worst kind, she warns.You will lead a miserable life.

I feel alive with anger and frustration and curiosity and the acute knowledge that I am happy of my own volition, even when I'm sick, or sinning.  I would be a little happier if I could make something of this stored pressure, instead of review contracts.

On beauty

At lunch today the friend I haven't met in a while commented on my relationship status and casually told everyone that a couple of his friends sent messages to him expressing dramatic heartbreak because of that relationship status.  His wife then laughingly commented that when I dated the disastrous Mr. Nine, people messaged his ex to say, "are you suffering attacks of insecurity yet?"

The table turned to Mr. Right and demanded to know whether he knows he's got rivals. Mr. Right grinned and said he knew that from the beginning.

I'm starting to feel flattered and uncomfortable with the topic as it is not something I know how to respond to very well, except with good humor, which I manage. I am a little surprised, and if Mr. Eight were reading this he would probably protest and say, "No you're not surprised. You can't fool me."

Mr. Right would often say "I think you're extremely beautiful, but you don't notice that much."

Well it is a moot point to argue, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I have no business beholding myself more than I behold others. And how much I behold others!

I behold others to the point of distraction. I notice when they wear black soft-lenses to cover their black retinas because they do not believe that their black eyes are black enough. I notice when they wear fake eye-lashes to a wedding party and I notice how they do not look more confident than they usually are despite that extra mile, or extra centimeter of eyelash. I notice the bags the shoes the bags the shoes the bags the shoes the bags the shoes. They are not more beautiful.

I notice the tan line on the broad shoulders of a friend who loves to swim. I notice the ridiculously loud laughter of a friend lying in her sick-bed. I notice the little curls on a forehead which escape the straightening iron. I notice how the swing of your hip gives away the comfort level of your shoes.  I notice a curious question delivered with widening eyes. These are extremely beautiful.

Mae

Perhaps 85% of my daily stress involves mother. She often asks me why I am so impatient with her when I can be so patient with other people. I thought of asking her to ask herself why but of course she would not know either.

I thought of how I feel that I would be very stress-free and happy if she did not meddle into my affairs; but a second later I think of how that does not really make sense because without her I would not be this happy person that I am today.

Nothing really makes sense.

On stereotypes

My clients, Americans, took me out to dinner after the negotiations.  They marveled at how Potato Head was so hip and vibey and gushed over the world-class cocktails and raved about Asians in general (except mainland Chinese, whom they "can't break through"). Talk turned to our counterpart, a tricky fellow with more money than he seems to have because he continues scraping at the bottom of the abandoned proverbial gold pit. I told them I used to date someone with the same surname i.e. the same clan and that was the worst relationship of my life. They laughed so hard they almost fell off their seats. Gave them a good lesson or two about tribal stereotypes, at the risk of over-stereotyping, and they absolutely loved it. I complained that Americans are so overwhelmingly over-friendly and they loved that too. They complained that most Indonesians are so afraid of confrontation that nothing gets done.

Apparently people high-up want a share in the deal, but then again that is hearsay and who knows who really knows anything? I told Mr. Right and he said it made sense, because how else would you ensure in good faith that the deal goes through for the sake of national interest, if you don't give the right incentives to the people in charge of ensuring those interests.  I told him that that may be the case for practical reasons based on the realities on the field, but a VIP with integrity would wave his sticks and ensure the deal goes through anyway, with or without rotten carrots.  Mr. Right is like Anakin, and he knows that if he ever goes over to the dark side I would rush over in a space-shuttle to say "you're breaking my heart, Ani". But there rarely is a black or white, I must concede, only a murky gray.

So I met the person who is allegedly the proxy for the alleged VIP who allegedly wants a cut in this deal, who is your typical middle-aged pot-bellied almost-balding ring-wearing gold-buckled slow-speaking businessman who never seems to get to the point of what he means. In the beginning, he played the "I'm not stupid" game. At some point I made him laugh, and that's when I knew things would be okay. After he signed the papers, he took us all out to lunch.

On weddings et. al.

Every so often I get tired of the strange people I encounter every day.  I mean "strange" with shameless judgment; it is my personal view of others relative to my perception of my own self; it is a subjective sentiment of which I do not care to pursue objectivity. 

And my personal preference is to perceive this prevalent strangeness at or around or in relation to weddings. Because at least there is an atmosphere of joy, and grilled mutton. 

My cousin's wedding yesterday was as expected. Food ran out by 8.30 pm.  The bride's face is plastered in make-up and she is wearing a tall shimmering gold crown that must weigh 3 kg because it took her 10 seconds to rotate her head to smile at me. The photos we took look like we could be anywhere in any of the million wedding venues in the city because they have the same chandeliers and the same carpeting and the same bridal stage and the same catering stalls. 

We stood in the middle of it all wondering if we could ever manage to escape being caught in a similar cycle.  We counted our friends (thousands), and our cliques (hundreds), and people who would not be offended if they weren't invited (very few). We want natural foliage and poolside spots but his mother hates sunlight and my mother is worried about flies in our food. We want secluded locations outside the city but my father is worried guests will find it bothersome. The resistance against anything unfamiliar and different is akin to the resistance against winds of reform in the government offices I frequently deal with. Ask why. Why? Why? And they, them, society, will answer collectively, "this is just the way we do things around here."  

And nobody questions that.  The lack of a desire to be individual is mind-boggling.

A friend the other day complained, to the bazillion members of our blackberry messenger chat-group, that she kept getting into never-ending fights with her fiancée.

This was, literally, everybody’s reaction to this heartfelt confession (LITERALLY):

Beyonce: “Be patient. Don’t forget, getting married is part of our religion. And satan does not like when we become religious, and therefore satan will always try to disturb us from performing it.”

Rihanna: RT “Be patient. Don’t forget, getting married is part of our religion. And satan does not like when we become religious, and therefore satan will always try to disturb us from performing it.”  It's just a test! I'm sure you'll pull through! :-)

Gaga: Agree!! ^_^ RT RT @Beyonce: “Be patient. Don’t forget, getting married is part of our religion. And satan does not like when we become religious, and therefore satan will always try to disturb us from performing it.” 

Britney: "Yes agree! Try talking to him, get him to understand, and don’t forget to pray a lot so that Allah shows the way. Don’t worry, in the end everything will be alright." 

This is madness. Utter madness.  


I would have said, wait. I'm sure God is doing His thing but while we wait for Him to sort you out, how about asking a few questions to yourself. Such as "WHY are you fighting instead of communicating?" "WHY do you want to marry him despite the fact that he drains your energy every day?"  "WHY do you feel that you need to compromise your career to make him happy?"


WHY are you all looking at me like that? What, I sound like a wannabe Freud? I'm too "Americano"? I'm too logical and heartless?  Too posh for the masses?  Too classy to invite everyone?  Fuck you. 


Having unique individual desires is the only thing that makes sense. 

Egg

My parents are still discussing how best to say an Easter greeting to my aunt. 

Long ago she married a Catholic and converted. Nobody minded much. Her parents were more concerned that he was of Chinese descent. "Are you sure?" they asked. "You don't want to find a Javanese man instead?" 

She had had the kind of relationship that lasted years. He would get jealous for various reasons throughout the years and she would often sit hunched on the phone with him, crying, silently so that her mother would not notice, but her sister, my mother, always noticed. She could not imagine anyone loving her as much as he did, completely, possessively. In the 70's nobody had yet figured out that possessiveness was a sign of insecurity.

So she converted and over the years his insecurity started leaking out from various parts of him, little by little, like hair that sheds one by one and nobody notices until they see a picture of how the hair used to be. One day his insecurity decided it was comfortable there and enveloped him whole, leaving no cover.  It became his character. He appeared to be a faithless man, or faithful only to the tales he spun to cover his lack of achievement.  My aunt, by contrast, became more faithful.  She went to church, sang praises, sought peace, and new friends. Jesus was her savior. 

My mother went through an entirely different journey and ended up in the same intensity of faithfulness, the kind that is born from a certain desperation.  The only thing that differentiated the sisters were their choice in men, and their choice of religion. They had the same mistaken perception of how different they were from each other. 

My parents are wondering how to say Happy Easter to her in a way which is Islamically correct. The saying goes that if we wish someone a Happy Easter or Merry Christmas, we are somehow acknowledging the raison d'être of their celebration, acknowledging the very fact that Jesus was born and died and resurrected to save humanity and is some kind of God. We could, however, tailor it a certain way so as to merely wish them a happy celebration, or a happy day in which they can conduct their celebrations. 

So far we have journeyed, from the days when my grandparents did not even blink when my aunt chose to convert. These days it is ridiculous.  It is like a different kind of insecurity.

Sacrifice

It was heartbreaking, the expression in mother's face this morning as she picked and cleared away the chilis in my fried rice. But what could I do. What could anyone do. 

She said no child could ever repay their parents and the sacrifices made. They will simply move on and transform from a son or daughter, to a relative. They will probably call or visit now and then but they would mostly forget.  

"It feels wrong if they are unmarried, and it feels wrong when they are married," she said. 

"What do you expect?" I said.

She did not answer. 

I ate my rice in silence.  Thinking about all the things I wish I could say in my capacity as a mechanical voice of reason. 

How could you not have thought about this, this moment in time when your children's wings would span tip to tip and take flight. How can you not feel pride and fulfillment at having brought them up so successfully. How could you have ever allowed yourself to believe that your children are your own possession, instead of a "titipan", an "amanah", a gift that is lent for a short while by God like everything else in life, as those preachers love to say. How could you not have thought of life as yours and yours only to make something of and be happy about regardless of your children.  How can you ever be happy if your happiness depends on someone else. How can you measure your children's love (or suspected lack thereof) by the measure of your own happiness (and lack thereof). Lastly, how can you preach daily about praying to God to manifest gratefulness if you have never looked happy in our eyes. 

But of course I could not say these cruel things.  I am a daughter about to be married, and I have never been a mother.

Heel kick

As in, proverbially kicking my heels off.

Today I encouraged a veiled young lady that being an occasional bitch will save her many times in life.  I then endured an entire meeting dominated by four foreign consultants discussing how to improve Jakarta's water supply system. Letting myself feel strangely embarrassed that they knew more about the system than I, or the other Indonesians in that meeting room, knew.  I then endured a long conference call in which I had to pretend to care about my client's debt-to-equity conversion clause and the numerical base price per share. My mind quietly wandered and decided to remind me that I wanted to lose 5 kgs this year, speaking of numbers.

I'm completely spent.

Interest

People are more interesting when they are interested in you.  By the same token, they would find you more interesting if you are interested in them.  I have unwittingly confused myself by coming up with my very own chicken and egg theory.  Who starts getting interested first in order to trigger interest in the other person?  It could happen spontaneously, or one person could start first and if interest vibrations could be visualized and plotted out on statistical graph then zig-zag lines would be bouncing back and forth from one person to the other, assuming the other is also, coincidentally, magically, interested.

This is basically an attempt to explain (to myself) the mysterious phenomena of why most of my friends are male.

Things

There are days when I wish to be stick thin, dressed in skinny leggings and white t-shirt with all the simplicity of a girl and sexiness of a woman. My general rule is that if I can look at myself naked in the mirror without cringing away, I'm good.  This becomes a problem because I can never see my backside, which mother always points out to me. She would say, "that dress only looks good from the front. From the back your buttocks are stretching it out of proportion". She would say, "you've grown wider ever since you came back from the US. What have you done there?"  She would say, "you should be grateful that you have someone who cares about how you look."  She would say, "If not me then who?"

Such is the happy perfection of my home.

Kindling

The writer Geoff Dyer said "Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire."

Which perhaps explains why whenever I am happy - but not the desperate intoxicating happiness that comes from desiring something imperfect and difficult, not the jarring happiness of being an excitingly awkward angle, not the searching happiness of never quite arriving at the wanted journey's end; but the steady happiness of being loved whole and piecemeal, the magnetizing happiness of having an axis around which to spin my unquenchable thirst for life, the liberating happiness of never needing to choose the perfect shade of a sky out of a million, the unboring uneventful happiness that comes from framing laughs around every mundane moment - that is when I cannot write a single page.

Swing

She had a constellation of zits spread out across her forehead and it dazzled him. He could see the orion belt, he could see it guiding him to the right direction without a compass. All that was needed was darkness, and a tilt of the head towards the stars. He talked to her about thought, action, emotion, and she talked to him about the philosophy of swings. She swung in her swing as she spoke and she listened, and he followed the pendulum of her movements, completely hypnotized. Later that night he swung her with his virginal movements and she was saddened by the sexually insatiable woman she had become. They were both rendered insecure by the certainty of the other half's pretenses of security.

"Men do not like girls who cannot stay put"

She was starting to believe she saw patterns in her head. She was starting to give me conclusions. I wanted to tell her that I have no trouble getting men to like me, but the fact of the matter was that I am still single.  I hate that she is implicitly blaming me for being single. It is very unfair. I would never do that to my daughter.  But she's too lovely to hate.

She asked me to explain how I have never regretted all my failed relationships.  I am sure she has never regretted anything either. I am sure it is not an alien concept to her. But she would be ready to feel that regret on my behalf, if she had to, so that I wouldn't. She consoles herself from my refusal to be worried about anything by telling me that she prays to God that I will find the right man.  Amen, I say.  At least that part is covered so I can focus on other things.

Mr. Seven replies to my email later that day. I emailed him because it is his birthday, and I remembered because of facebook.  It is a long delicious email that feels accidentally articulate. On our second date several centuries ago, he was the one who saw the irony of being an atheist eating ice cream on the steps of a church with a virgin muslim girl who wasn't fasting. He was too shy to kiss me. He told me he would never email me once I'm gone because he would not have the stories nor the writing skills worthy of mine, and it would be unfair for me.  He said it with a comfortable confidence, which could only mean he would do anything he could be horrible at because it wouldn't damage him one bit.

I haven't found the right man perhaps, but I've found the right memories.

Se todos fossem iguais a voce / If only everything were equal to you

"Are you working or killing time?"

"Working. Trying to. But I don't know anything... I just conned everyone into thinking I'm smart."

"Oh you are smart. It's just that you can't get yourself to actually care.  And if you don't, you have trouble employing all your brain in it."

"Thanks for your habit of just putting your finger on it."

"This is precisely where you fooled people: into thinking you care."

"I'm still a con-woman then."

"Yes."

Man on the Side

Mr. Six posted that and I suspect it is for me.  Now I feel guilty and insecure and confused and mashed, as the foundations of a defense that I've built over the past two something years since we ended our relationship are struck by little canon balls called The Other Side Of The Story.

Update: If I would just wise-up, I might realize that a relationship would not work in the end if a girl had to dampen her enthusiasm for life so that the boy would not feel left out and marginalized.  The problem is that I have been raised to feel slightly guilty about being so enthusiastic.

To exist.

To physically exist, I have lunch sometimes. With the people whose office rooms are next to mine or below mine or across from mine. I rarely see them.  I prefer to write during lunch break or just stare at my twitter-feed until my eyes hurt.

But they are nice people and they know I am nice. We exchange countless e-mails during the day bursting with niceties such as "noted with thanks' and "appreciate it" and "sorry for troubling you".  If I'm lucky we get to see each other on the hallways and I can compliment how much weight they've lost. When I'm feeling particularly personal I like to get creative and say "girl you are hot!".  When a girl says this to another girl it is a compliment, not a harassment. The recipient smiles and slaps the general air in front of her shyly, dismissively. 

Nobody really knows how to take a compliment. You can't say, "Thank you," because you are afraid that people will think that you agree with their compliment, which means you are full of yourself. You can't say, "No I'm not," because you're afraid that will sound like an outright disagreement with someone who just paid you a compliment, which isn't very polite.  You could say, "Amen. I hope that is a kind prayer that will be granted by God," which really works most of the time as it shows you are not only religious but also humbly cultured, but then again it only really works on old people.

The safest easiest way to take a compliment is to make a nonsensical gesture or meaningless utterance in what you hope is a humble manner and let it just float vaguely past the audience. Like slapping the air.

Of course, she isn't really that hot.  I probably just envy her legs.

Every self-help self-guide self-psycho-analysis book always says that one must venture out of one's comfort zone.  So when I start to feel too comfortable in my little office room with my choice of artwork on the wall with nobody I need to physically talk to except for the random hallway encounters, I have lunch.

When I do have lunch I realize two things:

1.  I have missed out on so many things. 

A group of colleagues have made a mailing list linking their personal emails together. This is to enable us to email each other when we don't feel like using the default office email to email each other like we do all day. An added value to this is that we can continue emailing each other even when it is the weekend, a luxury which office emails cannot facilitate.  I ignore these emails.

Another group of colleagues have made a blackberry chatgroup linking all the blackberry messengers together in one chat window. Here colleagues can exchange gossip, photos of their lunch, photos of naked celebrities, and other enlightening pieces of information.  I joined for two straight days and then kicked myself out, telling everyone that it was making my blackberry go slow.

I can't bother analyzing why, I really can't.  Perhaps I am a closet introvert. That is not the point.

Apparently one day a colleague posted a picture of himself and another colleague, in the middle of having a cozy candlelight dinner in what appeared to be a skyscraper in another country. He is married, she is not. The picture was posted on the blackberry group. Several months later it became apparent to everyone that they were having a full-fledged affair.  Everyone knew that they were doing things that everyone thinks everyone shouldn't be doing. Everyone knew that they fucked, in hotels, on neatly arranged weekly schedules.  Everyone knew that his wife had called her a slut  and everyone knew this because the wife had said it on twitter.  Everyone knew that she had responded to the wife by tweeting "I've already won the war".

Everyone, that is, except for myself.   Until a few days ago when I had lunch.

2. I don't really give a damn.

Orphan Express

It is an unprecedented charity plan.  The ladies have never thought of doing charity together before. That is why they are excited about plans to break fast together at the orphanage this coming fasting month. Apple is hardly containing her excitement.

"I'm soooo excited about our charity plans at the orphanage!" she says.  "While we're there I want to ask the orphans to pray that I will get married soon. You know how they say that the prayer of an orphan will be granted sooner by God Almighty, right? Berry, you want them to pray for you too, right?"

Berry agrees with enthusiasm.  She says "I doooo!!! Amen to that!"

Burnt

I had it coming.  I knew I had.

Spending a weekend in Ubud with him was generally something of a passionate suicide. I live still but am dazed. It is not any label of feeling or hope or other banal beginnings of a description to any kind of established emotion. I refuse to declare anything except that the certainty I would come back to Jakarta, back home, in a daze of yearnings, is proven.  

Of course I would never have turned back even if I knew that with twice the certainty that I had. To make life simple, so says my friends.  Life is simple, just do what you want to do.  Don't over-complicate things, they say.  And I wouldn't. I would flow, leaping and frolicking like the froths of a shallow river over stones and pebbles and salmon spawn. The natural thing to do. But this stupor that I find myself in, on this gloomy Monday in my office, is not simple.

I am not over thinking or over analyzing more than normal. I have simply sat on my office chair unable to have a single coherent thought.  Just missing the wind in my hair as we cruise through the winding roads along green rice fields on his motorbike enjoying the little things and sleeping to the sound crickets and waking up to the sound of roosters and fussing over paintings and coffee. It sounds exotic, yes, and too obviously likeable and missable. Quizas, quizas, perhaps. So what. 

So fucking what?

Before we parted he gave me a book by Zadie Smith and inscribed in it he had written:  "To Stella.  A book filled with all the things you cherish:  Seeing, Reading, Feeling, Being, Remembering."   Each verb the title of the chapters of the book.

He watched the expression on my face and asked whether that was sufficient as an inscription.  I felt slightly crushed and could only manage a weak smile. The sensation of having someone know me and express it so effortlessly felt almost offensive. Tinged with the suspicion that he could find a million things fascinating to him whilst I am stupidly in awe of everything he finds fascinating. And he will leave and pursue his insatiable interests around the world whereas I am unsure of how to channel my insatiability, my millionth outburst of a half-baked idea.  Yearnings and yearnings piling up without form.

And I leave his atmosphere and his idyllic home to a place that has once more become confusing.  Every time I find comfort elsewhere, the comfort that I've worked hard to build at home falls away. Why does coming home always have to be hard? 

Yes. Yes. Yes I am disoriented today. Completely so. Like a little girl. I will get better tomorrow and work like an intelligent woman with a passion and vision.  But today I am burnt with pleasure and I am dysfunctional.

Ladies lunch

Still on the topic of lunch, but of the literal kind.

I drive down South of Jakarta to where my pretty young ladies have assembled. We are like sex and the city. A group of attractive and stylish career women who've known each other since we were still unattractive. Apple has perfect tresses of hair and is in a steady relationship with a boyfriend who demands to know her every movement wherever she is, and had just been to a wedding party with her boyfriend's mother. She is distressed. Oh, why is she distressed? Because the mother, for the first time, asked her seriously whether she is serious about her son. Apple smiles, surprised, happy, and says, "yes".  Yes and why is she distressed?  Because the mother then said, "Please be patient my dear.  Wait for his elder brother first."

Apple understands, but she cries. She anxiously wonders how much longer she will have to wait to wed the boy. She laments that the elder brother is not outgoing, she wonders how on earth he can be encouraged to find a girlfriend and get married. She presses her palms against her pretty cheeks and her pretty cake lies abandoned on the table, half-eaten. 

The conversation swings here and there and after a while, Cherry announces that she will be getting engaged next month. A sudden rush, rather like a graceful stampede, occurs as the girls fling themselves around Cherry and shower her with emotional hugs. They demand to know how it happened, whether he proposed, when's the date. She calmly explains that, during her two-week bed-rest recovering from typhoid, she grew bored and restless and decided to browse wedding sites.  She then got a little over-excited and decided to call one of the venues to see if they were available.  When the venue responded favorably she decided to just book the damn thing. Her mother set the engagement date. The boyfriend, who had been ready for a long time, was informed of the developments. 

Berry, a sexy divorced single-mom whose first marriage happened when she was 22, fixes Cherry with a radiant gaze and rubs her bare caramel-colored arms and declares she is getting goosebumps. She herself is hopeful on and likely to be getting engaged soon. However, she is likewise distressed.  Because her boyfriend's father insists that they must find a house before they marry, whereas her mother insists that she must stay in her mother's house after they marry. She says she shed tears at the nerve-wracking dilemma. She sees no way out of the current situation. 

Other stories become intertwined. Of the wedding of Apple's close friend, and how pretty the bride was, and how dashing the groom was. Of what color our uniforms should be at Cherry's wedding next year. Of our countless friends or people we know of from people we know. 

Of not being able to get married before the eldest does, and deciding weddings because of typhoid, and mothers who demand their children stay in her house after marriage. And then incoherent buzzing and humming as I start to disconnect.

I go to the bathroom to breathe and look at myself in my pretty pink summer dress.

"What am I doing here?" I ask.

From the window I see a foreigner sitting alone on the outdoor patio, working on his laptop.  I suddenly envy him.

Free lunch

The unexpected mid-year salary raise offered to me on a silver platter did, in fact, occur, and it came with a pile of work because there is, in fact, no such thing as a free lunch. 

The new housemaid, 15 years old, left again after two weeks of employment.  I am back to washing dishes and bearing mother's lamentations on doing the laundry.  I secretly suspect she enjoys the leverage of driving me to guilt for never being home with enough time to do the laundry. But my guilt is purely based upon her pleasure or displeasure, and nothing to do with my time or the laundry. Obviously if I had my own way I would invest in a one-touch button washing machine and come home to find my clothes dry.  It would of course be a waste of Jakarta's scorching hot sunlight to use a drying-machine, but I would of course be using solar cells to power it so that should be fine. 

I digress.  The maid resigned, saying she was tired and wanted to go home. Mother asked whether she wanted a raise, whether she wanted less work, whether she wanted to go to school. She said, no, she just wanted to go home. Mother asked what she was going to do back home and she replied that she didn't know. I heard the story over the phone, in my office, at my desk littered with a thousand-million to do's. My primary concern was for mother, but we had gone through so many long periods without a maid it really wasn't anything out of the ordinary or insurmountable. My other concern was if her parents had no money and she would not go to school and she did not want to work then what did she want to make of her life? 

I was overworked, harsh, and prejudiced. I knew nothing of her 15 year old mental situation. If her parents were anything like typical uneducated parents in this country they would hope to just marry her off as soon as she came of age and hope for the best. But I wouldn't know.

All I knew was that I had no patience for her lazy explanations because nobody should expect a free lunch, not the rich and certainly not the poor. That said, she is too young to be working. If it weren't for the thought that she needed the work to help her get by in life, what reasonable person could hire a child? 

On that note I shall make myself imagine that she is going back home to follow her heart, defy her parents,  tell them that she has her whole life in front of her, that she is not ready to work or get married, and she wants to just sit home and read whatever she can read so that she can get a scholarship to school.

What are the chances of that being the case?

I regret that I wasn't home enough to talk to her properly.