Today I met my friend on the mall. It's an ordinary mall, another ordinary day in our long-lasting friendship. I've known her for almost the last 10 years and we have been friends ever since.
She came with her little sister. We went shopping together. She's the eldest child in her family with her three little siblings. Her mother had passed away. Her father's business was quite often having a disastrous difficulties and the fortune goddess seemed to put the star on her. Then she became the bread-winner in her family. She's very strong, I have to say.
I went shopping many times with my other friends and usually ended up in some upscale stores scanning the fancy apparels and other cute things, but shopping with her today was at least, slightly different. We went to the grocery store. She and her sister picked up the detergent, the cooking oil, and other leave-it-to-your-mother-stuffs.
I am still having my mother at home. She's the one who usually picks up those things and ensures that the stock will always be properly adequate. Well, me, too, more or less, a kind of bread-winner in my family now. I am adequately paid doing the jobs that I loved, the ones that I'm gratefully embracing in my life. I used to raid off the grocery store by myself thinking about the stocks in my house and starting to pick up the things like flour, jelly powder, chili sauce, noodles, milk, and slowly trying to back up my mother's role. I love cooking and love to set up my mind in a way that making me a-wife-and-mother-material-girl. I do it all along for "fun", at my own interest. I used to think that I'm the rare one, minority-kind, until today I saw the bigger responsibilities had been taken.
Finally, at cashier, a toddler in a stroller beside me stared at me. He's a boy. I smiled and rubbed his hair. Ah, kids...I will have them someday hopefully. I always want them.
and my friend continued her shopping time with her sister. They went to the restaurant. I went home and said hello to my home-made lasagna at the afternoon. (January 23, 2011)
