February 1, 2012

My dearest,

We are driving along the highway from Skudai towards the city centre of Johor Bahru, away from the golf resort and heading towards your childhood favourite breakfast of chee cheong fun (and now mine). There are so many trees on either side of us – palm trees that I recognise and many others that I do not. Johor is much greener than Malacca, I say. Greener than KL too, you reply. I nod. Will make a perfect retirement home when we grow old, you say.

I have always thought that retirement was an awful thing. Why grow old and grow boring? Why diminish when one gets bored of life and all its trappings? Better to be always doing stuff, filling the hours with excitement. One ought to be always occupied, always have things to do.

Maybe not. I look at the rows of trees that line our left and our right. I dream of the silky-smooth chee cheong fun and the liquid gold of the wat tan hor, the best to be had in the country. I think of us growing old together and returning to this not-so-quiet, not-so-busy town to spend the rest of our days. Retirement doesn’t seem half bad, really.

Yours, ever and always.