My life as I never knew it

WHAT day is it? Oh yes, it’s Wednesday because my column comes out on that day. But I am writing this on Monday, which is what I usually do as part of my routine.

Ah, routine. That is defined as “a sequence of actions regularly followed”. And for a very huge part of my life, my routine centred around my job as a journalist that, for many years, kept me occupied and out of my house. I spent more hours in the office than at home.

All that changed when I retired last month. It also coincided with my Indonesian maid going on home leave for six weeks. That meant I had to take over all the cooking and housekeeping chores as well as looking after my mum.

I am at the half-way mark, with another three weeks to go before Wiji’s return.

It’s not the first time Wiji, who has worked for me for 13 years, went home. But it’s the first time I have solely taken over. Before that, Mum had Dad were both phy­sically well enough to look after themselves and each other and Mum could still cook.

After Dad fell ill in 2015 and was bed-ridden, we had two Filipino male nurses who helped keep an eye on the old folks when Wiji went home.

After Dad died in 2016 and Wiji again took her break in 2017, my Mum’s cousin, Aunty Susan, came over to look after her, which again allowed me to conti­nue working.

I freely confess I was happy and relieved to always find help when my maid went on home leave. This time is different because as a reti­ree, I had no excuse not to stay home. And I must say it’s been good and bad.

The bad is obvious: I can’t sleep late because I have to be up to take care of Mum who is 85, there are the never-ending household chores and cleaning up after my also ageing poodle.

But that’s also where the good part comes in. As a teenager, I did plenty of house chores with my sisters and there was actually a kind of pleasure in mopping the floors and washing the bathrooms till they were super clean.

And while Wiji had done the floors every day except Sunday, they have somehow become rather grotty. I wear house slippers so I never really noticed till two weeks back.

That was how I ended on my hands and knees to wipe my marble floor and scrub the grime off my terracotta tiles in the kitchen.

My arms ached, my back hurt but boy did I feel mighty pleased with myself to see my shiny marble floor.

Another good that came out of my maid-less situation is I am cooking again. I used to do the occasional baking but I had not cooked a proper meal all by my lonesome in a very long time.

All my girlhood training by Mum and older sisters came back – it’s like riding a bicycle, you never forget. I made soups, stir-frys, curries, steamed fish and egg to great success.

Having to cook means I redisco­vered my kitchen. There were great finds like gadgets I had bought and never used. The not great part was finding lots of expired foodstuff in the pantry and cruddy, mouldy leftovers and sauces in the fridge that needed throwing out.

My world has suddenly become very small and insular and the days go by so very quickly, I find myself losing track of days of the week.

Basically, my daily routine now revolves around Mum. Because she is prone to sudden dizzy spells which can cause her to fall, she cannot be left alone at home.

Caring for Mum involves taking her blood glucose and pressure readings, giving her insulin jabs, getting her meals on time, bathing her, checking for bruises or wounds especially on her feet since she has lost most sensation there because of her diabetes, forcing her to do minimal exercises.

Mum has always been a difficult and volatile person, even with her children. We couldn’t help but love Dad more and Mum knew it, which made her even more cranky and sensitive.

When Dad died three years ago, she lost her anchor in life and I know she misses him. With senility slowly setting in, she is frequently confused, suspicious and stubborn.

In the past, I was relieved to have a job to get away from her. But there’s been no escaping Mum the last few weeks.

Despite her orneriness, I have come to understand her better and she has also tried to be less demanding. We are also having more conversations. The latest was how people coped 50 years ago without plastic bags and containers, which is one of my biggest pet peeves.

“Well, we used coconut and banana leaves and newspapers to wrap a lot of stuff. We managed with that.”

Then she confirmed what I remembered from my childhood: people had to bring their own glass bottles to hospitals for their medicines.

“There were no plastic bottles or packets. We had to make sure the bottles we brought were clean and sterilised,” Mum said.

That’s something to think about, isn’t it? Back in those pre-plastic days, people had to be responsible for things like that. You want medicine, it’s BYO clean bottles.

We have become so lazy because of plastic and we all know the price the world is paying for that now.

That brings me to my on-going struggle with plastic. Because I cook and clean, I am even more conscious and horrified by how much plastic, almost all single-use packaging, I throw away every day.

But I am sorting my recyclables better, like washing and drying food containers and removing bits of plastic from paper waste before I put them in separate bins. The family is also making conscious efforts to bring our own containers for takeaways and refuse plastic cutlery.

I am just three weeks into retirement and there is so much to do! A very important task ahead is the decluttering of my house. The crazy thing is I brought back seven boxes of stuff from the office. Sentimentality got the better of me. Calling Marie Kondo!

One thing that Aunty finds really hard to do is resisting the urge to turn on the air-conditioning in the house because the humidity and heat leave her in a constant state of sweatiness!