kindergarchy.

today is may 2nd, i woke up with a little grin and a pair of lightly ablaze eyes.


here's what happened yesterday:

around 6/7 in the morning i could hear my mom's faint whispers knocking on my ears. my eyes flickered for a while before my brain registered the clear vision of her sitting by my bedside. usually she would just stand in the doorway with her ignorant look and a voice as sturdy as metal gate, but yesterday she was so soft and composed.

"happy birthday," she said.

i smiled.

on my bbm rayhan was the first to say happy birthday, via voice note. his voice was heavy and controlled as he mumbled the classic happy birthday tune and replaced the lyrics with his delinquent words. that made me happy. right following was anin's birthday message, it was nice that she always remembers.

my aunt who stayed in our house in jakarta also sent smses to my phone, my mom's and my dad's.

i shared my birthday with arya so i congratulated him, and he said he actually had sent a birthday message to me right at 0000 singapore time which failed to go in

afterward my mom and i discussed about what things we were going to do for the day. i said, "i don't need cakes nor candles, let's just stay home for the rest of the day."

and so we stayed. as what we always do on weekends, mom cooked, my brother vacuumed the floor and i did the mopping. we were having a bowl of meatballs when my father descended the staircase. and then he said happy birthday. i kissed his hand, saying thank you before he joined us for the meal.

before noon they were leaving the house for a small gathering so i took photos of my favourite slip dress and a lot of mango puddings.

i removed my birthday from my facebook page since 2009 and i really appreciated that some friends still remembered. i didn't intend it to be some sort of a filter, just wanting to respect those who genuinely remember that date by heart.

bening sent me a birthday sms, kevin called me to pull off a short, nice prank (which unfortunately didn't work very well) and sang happy birthday. he had a singing competition yesterday which i said to him i could not attend, and as expected he aced it

in the afternoon bening came to move into our house, her mom and dad and bening herself said happy birthday and i said thank you. after putting bening's stuff in the room, bening came out and handed me a cd. i could not make out what it was at first as i left my glasses upstairs, and then i saw it.... the morning benders' album. what a pleasant surprise! i said a lot of thank yous and wished i could hug her, but i wasn't sure if she's a hug person (haha...)

by night i had received a decent number of birthday utterances, which i took time to reply individually. two hours before midnight the last wish from adrian via twitter came in. it was one of my preferred wishes this year as he's among the few people who understand what my writing signifies to me.

this morning i woke up feeling content as i found one last message in my inbox, a late sms from one of my favourite people in jakarta, saying he just left a silly little comment on my old post.




i laughed and smiled and told him that i laughed before saying thank you on my blog.