Yesterday Once More

We drove into the underground car park, with Karen Carpenter still belting out “Yesterday Once More”. There were many parking spaces but we went round and round buying time as none of us wanted to go home. We wanted this time to be together, but the guard making his rounds on the scooter was already getting suspicious of our intentions. So we found a space by the lift. With the headlights switched off, we stayed on in the car and accompanied Karen Carpenter as she finished off the song with…Every shalalalaa, every wo wo wo…still shinessss, every shing-a-ling-a ling as they started to sing, so fineeee…

“What would it be like if we had yesterday once more?” said a voice breaking the silence. As it was getting to be a bit eerie in the underground car park at that time of the night we decided to continue our conversation at the Korean restaurant above. It was above the sizzling of the prawns on the tapanyake and over the din of the hungry midnight crowd that we continued the conversation.

“Yes, what would it be like if we had yesterday once more?” came the nagging question again.

This line of conversation started when we met earlier in the day for lunch at one hotel in PJ, and continued amidst giggles and stifled laughters in the changing rooms of Subang Parade and now in the car park and a Korean restaurant, the one facing RTM.

We’ve known each other since primary one and my trips back home are never complete without outings with my dearest childhood friends. We tried to catch up with developments in our lives; work, family, menantus and cucus – everything. Every get-together was treated as if it was our last one. We all wanted to talk at the same time as if there’s no tomorrow; in the car park, by the side of the road, crammed in changing rooms - all natural progressions of what we used to do when we were growing up.

When that question was posed, we had all been married well over twenty years. Two in the group are already mothers in-law, one with grandchildren. There are still two of us in denial and refused to be dragged into that category.

So what is it? A quarterly review? How would you have lived your life if you are given yesterday once more? Would you have written your life’s sonata differently and plan a totally different storyboard? If only we are in charge of destiny, but we are not. We just plan and dream.

I had never been very ambitious but I did want to further my studies. Friends were applying to Ohio and Syracuse – places I imagined I would be had Eros not struck his arrows so soon. But brooding over lost opportunities only serves to close our eyes and hearts to others. So, I became a married woman at a time when I couldn’t even cook to save my life. Perhaps that was one area I could have prepared myself more. But then again, he didn’t even flinch when I washed the keropoks before frying them, nor did he bat an eyelid when I threw out the tempehs which I thought had gone bad. It was either a take away or eating out or a meal prepared from 8 am for dinner at 8pm. And that was usually after a long consultation with Mak over the phone.

Now, I am glad to say, I still cook very little. But those that I do, I do them well, mainly because those are the only dishes gracing my dinner table all the time, making repeated appearances until children discreetly order kebabs or pizzas for a bit of change. He? No, he never complained. For that I am grateful.

The opportunity to further my studies came a knocking again quite late in my life and I was thankful that I got the support from the whole family. The already chaotic lifestyle became even more chaotic as I began to spend more time at the university and the library than at home. And the day I received the scroll, and was greeted with a bouquet of flowers from my sayang mamas, I thought it was well worth it.

Would I have changed anything about being in a foreign land so soon after marriage? No. If anything, I treasure the time together, to get to know each other as husband and wife and try to live in each other’s bubbles as well as tolerate each other idiosyncrasies. He had had to put up with a lot of Alleycats or other craze and obsessions of mine. Understanding my spoonerism and malapropism was perhaps the biggest challenge but hey, he understands me when I say right and mean left.

We compromised over children – I wanted ten, he wanted lots of cats. Now we have four children and five cats. I gave away ten to the RSPCA while he was away.

There is no such thing as marriage being a bed of roses. But then perhaps I live in another garden. You just have to work things out and because you don’t have anyone else but each other, that’s what you do.

You have to try to sort out problems before the sun goes down, without having to resort to calling up your mother or siblings. I’ve learnt to wash away problems and anger by scrubbing the kitchen table or the bathroom floor.

Looking back, I remember wise words by Kak Adibah Amin when she heard that we were tying the knot. She said she always knew that something was going on and that we looked alike. And that was supposed to be good. I had not given much thought about it until I saw a recent photograph of us together. You don’t live together for more than twenty years without acquiring some mannerisms, some habits of the other. You learn to anticipate jokes, finish each other’s sentences and recognise the sound of the key in the lock. Though he no longer chased me up the steps to the station or hide behind a pillar to make me jump, I still laugh at his jokes. If we used to share malteasers while watching a movie, now he offers me supplements and vitamins.

I guess my yesterday once more would have just minor adjustments here and there but nothing major. My friends at the Korean restaurant too wouldn’t want it any other way. But it was a good session that we had apart from the tapanyake.

So, how would you live your life if you have Yesterday Once More?

Kak Teh's other yesteryears once more:
This Autumn of our Lives