Setting up a cafe has always been my dream. When I was in Junior College, the idea of giving up a University degree and going to culinary school has crossed my life. I love baking and I love cooking, and it is always so satisfying when someone compliments the things I make. But I chose to take an accountancy degree in NTU in the end.
I guess I have always knew since then it wasn't a dream that could be easily attained. Not that I do not have enough passion for it, or that I am giving up on my dream. But there are simply too much at stake - I have more than myself to think of.
Things would have been easier if I came from a more well-to-do family. My parents are not very educated. My mum worked in the F&B industry all her life and became a housewife only 6 years back because my maternal grandma had a stroke and she had to take care of her since. My dad has done many jobs, of these I knew, he worked as a casino dealer, a fruit vendor, a bus driver and now a taxi driver. And he's getting old - he's 62 this year. Before I started work, the furthest any of my parents ever went to was probably Hong Kong - and that was only once, for my mum. Since I started work, I always try to help out financially on household purchases on top of monthly allowance. I pay the bills, I pay for new furniture. This year in March, I paid for their tour packages to Taiwan and Ah C was nice to give them some money for shopping as well. I was really glad that I was able to do these for them and I want to continue doing so.
Ah C can surely support me right now and takes good care of me. But because his family is not well-to-do either, he needs to help out with his family too. And it will be too much on him to take care of my family too if I am not working. I want to be able to give my parents a more comfortable life than they ever have had.
People tell me how envious they are of my life now, not having to work, living in a foreign country and enjoying myself. As much as I am glad that we got the approval for me to move here with Ah C and spend time with him after so many years living apart, sometimes I wish I was back home working and making money. I said this to another pilot trainee's girlfriend I met a few days back and she replied that "she feels life is more than that" - she is staying with her pilot trainee boyfriend in the US now too, I think she didn't really understand what I meant, that for some people, there are just more things they need to consider, and that some people are just luckier.
And as much as I don't think I want to do audit again, I really just might do that, as least for the next few years before I have kids. Because all I really want to do the next few years is to earn and save as much money as possible, bring my parents on more trips before they get older and subsequently dedicate all my time I have to my family when we we have kids. Ahhh.. in the end I am going to do it again.. at least I have this one year break as consolation, right? Cafe oh cafe, you just have to wait.
Well, to me, I am not giving up on anything, its just that at different points of life, there are different things to be done. I don't think this is procrastination, just that when you have less privileges and more stakes in life than others, you need more time than them to achieve some things. True that life is unexpected, but don't we always do things expecting it to turn out some way?
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