The Fabric Newspaper

Today I counted and realized that I have moved, no, I have lived in 12 different residences/house/apartment/rented room at 6 cities, 2 countries, and moved a total of 14 times. Wow.

Living my parents home after high school definitely has brought me a loooong way. Half way across the world and back, to be exact. And years of living alone. I loved it. I learned to be independent, physically and mentally. I learned to make my own decision. I learned to depend on myself in almost everything, including when I'm sad, confused, or sick. And most importantly, I learned to know and love and accept myself. On the flip side, I grew the habit of self-centered-ness. Not selfishness, mind you, but self-centered-ness, because there was only me, most of the time.

Now that I'm living with someone else, a.k.a my husband, I'm learning something new: being flexible. Let's see. We have different definition of the word "clean and tidy" and "frugal". He loves Asian food, I like Western food. He needs to talk about his problems, I keep things mostly to myself. I like to be alone most of the time, he likes to be with other people and want me to accompany him. I mean, we live in the same house now, it won't kill him to have dinner by himself when I'm reading in my room, rite. Nope, he wants to have dinner with me and telling me all about his day and his thoughts. He is very sweet and understanding, but I have to remind him over and over that my way of recharging the battery is to be left completely alone for a few hours.

So far so good. I'm learning to adapt to his ways, and he's learning to adapt to mine. I guess the biggest adjustment he has to make is having limited allowances every month, since I manage all of our household money, my income and his, our assets, investments (but we make investment decisions together) and legal papers. The reason for that is simple: I'm the more frugal and meticuluous one! If he were, it would be the other way around! So - much to his delights, since he hates working on details - I'm the one to keeps records and documents, keep track of our daily and monthly spending, and read the legal papers like the house deed and bank documents. Fortunately I have had years of experience reviewing those kinds of financial and legal documents in my line of work, so I could do it fast enough.

We talked about it over before we got married, and we're glad that we did since so many married couples fight about money, though they love each other whole heartedly. It might sound not romantic, but we believe that if you cannot talk about money comfortably when you are crazy in love, it would be foolish to believe that you can talk about money comfortably later when the sparks have cooled down a bit, or gone altogether!

Jacket: tailor made. Turtleneck: GAP. Accessories: Singapore. Skirt: vintage find from Italy. Suede purse: Nordstrom. Shoes: Yongki Komaladi.

Linking up to:

"/>