Girlfriends

Almost four years into my relationship, I have learnt many things about keeping things between me and the boy happy. Of the tricks I've learnt, my favourite two are 1)Make sure he has enough sleep, and 2)Have our meals on time. But as we recently discussed, here is one truly enlightening factor to our happy relationship:

He is not my everything.
And I am not his everything. He needs his ukulele-time and ps3-time, I need my career-time, shopping-time, family-time and girlfriend-time. We are fulfilled and happy on our own, and so we are happy when we come together.

I want to give a special mention to Girlfriend Time. I was getting ready for dimsum brunch with the girls, and changing my outfit a gazillion times. My mother wisely noted, "We only dress up for women. When I dress to go out with your father, it's no challenge."

Boys see the general picture: you're dressed up, or you're dressed down. Girls know what style you're going for with your new necklace, they notice fresh manicures, they examine what you just did at the salon.

Girlfriend time means dressing up with lots of lipgloss, taking turns to tell stories, clutching each other's hands, hugging hello and goodbye, ordering food for yourself, singing along to old songs, condemning good-for-nothing men, gravely analysing each other's love lives, long pedicures, and sleepless sleepovers. It is a whole different realm in itself. And irreplaceable.