This post is long overdue. Just as the picture in the post speaks of things long overdue.

You see, for the longest time, we’ve had a bag of soft toys in our store room, waiting to be given away. These were all toys that we’d picked up over the years from before the boys were born. When I finally had the opportunity to change jobs, we finally found the motivation to take the toys out of the store room, and planned a day where we would donate the soft toys – the ones that were still intact, totally lovable, but surplus to requirement – to the Salvation Army.

When going through the pile, we found and decided to keep, the bear on the left. Her name was (creatively and aptly), “大 Bear Bear” or literally, big bear. She is a very special bear, as she was the second gift I gave to my ex-girlfriend, when we first decided that we were more special than best friends should be.

The hippo next to her was our second staple toy. His name is Hippo. We’re really creative that way. He was my physical replacement – my ex-girlfriend brought him home, to remind her of me because he shared – and still shares – my shape. The round bits at least.

But this story is linked more to DBB. Hippo just wanted to say hi.

DBB was found at a time where I’d had no energy for a couple of years to really celebrate the time where my ex-girlfriend and I had decided to first commit and hold hands. We’ve always skipped celebrating our wedding anniversaries, choosing only to post little notes on FB instead. But without celebrating our “this-is-the-date-we-held-hands” day, there were still things in life that were dragging me down. We should at least have made time to celebrate our wedding anniversary when we couldn’t celebrate THE day. So a celebration of our love – she’s still my best ex-girlfriend after all – is long overdue. Whether it’s for our wedding anniversary, or the day she chose to agree to be official.

There’re still lots of things which are long overdue and I’m slowly recovering my energy to get to them. Clearing the desks at home so we have proper workspaces, removing old laptops and even old phones, re-looking how I look at work and life, slowly learning to take risks again…

But perhaps one of the first things I must get done, as it’s long overdue, is to spend some time with my beloved wife again.

Here’s another little anecdote – DBB was the second gift because the first gift was another 小 bear bear. After a week of surprising her with gifts, and constantly telling her I loved her, my ex-girlfriend told me to stop – as she felt all this was not from the heart and not real. I promised to stop the gifts, partly because I was using my pocket money and that was limited. But I refused to stop saying that I loved her. I told her that was because I really did, and I couldn’t stop saying it for that reason.

19 years later, and I’m still saying it with truth and honesty. From the heart. I missed this year’s 27th Feb, so this is long overdue.

I love you, my best friend and love. May God bless our marriage with many more years of love, and with many more chances to say “I love you”. And may we catch up on all the things that are long overdue, starting with some time together without the dark clouds of my situation hanging over us.

*Muakz*