Selamat hari raya...

I was waiting for the elevator this morning when I looked out the hallway door and saw the dimly lit doorway of the apartment building across the street. It is barely light out, and there was nothing out of the ordinary that I can see. Yet, somehow the morning seems different. The garage was still dark when I got down. Someone has a new habit of turning off the lights every night. If only I knew where the light switch is. I'm usually not afraid of the dark, but today was a little different. It was a good thing I didn't have to move E's car to get out.

As I drove out, I saw that the ground was wet. It had been raining. I didn't even hear or smell it. The light drizzle wet my windshield. It looked like my windshield needs a new coat of Rain-X. And that reminded me, I should've worn my raincoat. I contemplated turning back to change, but decided against it. Today I didn't turn on the radio as I usually do when I get out of the garage. Partly because I am not interested in listening about someone's London Bridge wanting to go down, but mostly because I wanted to be left alone with my thoughts. Random as they may be.

My alarm clock went off at 6.19 this morning. I'm pretty sure it had gone off earlier than that, since I set it for 5.30, but the buzzing at 6.19 was what I woke up to. I turned the clock off, jumped out of bed, and headed for the shower. None of the usual turning over and lying on my stomach, pillow-less and diagonally on the bed, while waiting for the alarm to go off again. In the shower I soaped myself twice, because I would otherwise be done showering too quickly.

All the while, I was thinking about my dream. It made me feel so weird. I dreamt about Mak Long, my mom, brothers, and others whom I cannot remember. In fact, I can't even recall what the dream was about. Yet it still threw me off my routine. It made me think about raya. It's almost that time of the year, and eventhough I should be used to celebrating it abroad by now, I am not. Which is why when I am not back home for it, I usually don't celebrate it at all. Or much, anyway. I suppose being able to re-join my lunch crew does lift my spirit. I won't lie about that.

My mom is also trying to get used to a new way of raya. The last few years have been especially rough for her, having to come up with a new raya routine (kubur - home - breakfast raya - nenek's house - Mak Long's), only to have it change again the following year because yet another loved one critical to the routine has passed on. Pretty soon more of our raya crowd will be underground than above. What do we do then? Maybe the kubur session before sembahyang raya would just extend longer and longer. We would need a big sack of flowers. We might need to special order them, in case the usual florist we go to doesn't have enough.

Well, obviously when my cousins marry and breed, the family will grow again. Except now we will all have our own nucleus to gather around during holiday times. Once in a while we will break the norm and bring our families to visit our ex- raya circle. The kids will not understand why they have to visit uncles and aunts they don't even know. I know I didn't. But we will know why, and hopefully we will still do it and enjoy seeing each other again, even if the days of playing buaya buaya are long gone.

I suppose this is part of growing up.