littlecipi

December 04, 2009. I just got home from my daily overtime work. It was Friday so I came home pretty late. But I didn’t feel exhausted though, since I really enjoyed my work that time. I greeted My Mom who was watching T.V. She welcomed me home and told me to sit down next to her.

Me: What is it, Mom?

Mom: Ko, tell Epi to tell her mother that we are going to visit her family this 12th of December. (By the way, “Ko” is a short for “Koko”. It’s an Indonesian to call the oldest son in the family.)

Me: What?

Mom: Well, I see that you both are matched to each other, so I want to make a proposal with her family. Of course, you will not get married soon. But after you graduated later.

Me: If this is a joke, it isn’t funny at all.

Mom: Of course it’s no joke, you stupid. She’s the only daughter and she’s 4 years older than you. I will feel bad to her family if I don’t do this proposal thing as soon as possible, you understand? Besides, you know that you need her. She completes you, am I not correct? Not to mention that she’s a very nice girl too. I like her.

Me: *nods* (thinking of what happened for the last few months before)

Mom: So yeah, it’s already been settled. I have bought the gold necklace with your saving, so everything’s already prepared.

Me: Wow, you’re fast.

Mom: Heh, it’s me that you’re talking to, remember? (Now I know the source of my narcissism)

Me: Okay then, December 12 it is. Oh, can I see the necklace first? I hope it’s a white gold one.

Mom: Nah, it’s the yellow one. Its price is more stable than white gold. Here it is.

Me: Uh oh… It’s real nice. But Mom.. it adds like 15 years for the user.

Mom:

Me: Hm.. Doesn’t matter anyways. It’s not like she’s going to use it everytime. Anyways, it’s very nice, Mom. Thank you. *kissed her cheek*

Mom: Mmmhmm.

Me: Okay then, I’m gonna take a shower first, then I’ll let Epi know.

***

So I told Epi about it, and at first, she was surprised too just like me. I mean, she already knew that this was coming (and so did I), but we never imagined that it would be this early. But well, it wasn’t really a big deal, so she told her parents that me and my Mom will be going there in a week.

Truth to be told, it was one of my longest week of my entire life. I spent almost the whole time thinking and thinking about whether I was ready for this. Whether I was ready to get to the next level of commitment.

It’s a shame for me to remember a stupidity that I once made before, but I can’t deny that I’ve made a mistake. A very big one. There was a doubt in my head, afraid that I would do such thing again. Or I can simply say: at first, I wasn’t really ready for it.

Or at least that’s what I thought.

December 12, 2009.

We got to the airport by 9 in the morning and the flight itself took only like around 15 minutes to depart and land. But the flight was too bumpy, I mean, like shaky or something like that. Perhaps I was just not used to take a small aeroplane to travel.

Anywho, by the time we landed, Epi’s family, along with her relatives picked us up. Then we went to this restaurant, which I forgot the name (you can ask Epi later) and had a lunch together. That time, Epi’s Mom or Dad, still didn’t know that I smoke cigarettes. I didn’t have any plan to let them know yet, because Epi thought it was a bad idea.

It’s just a common thing for a smoker to smoke, especially after eating right? That’s exactly what I tried to do. I excused myself and told them that I want to go to the bathroom. And what happened next was “this-is-exactly-why-i-never-get-used-to-travel-with-mom” thing.

Epi’s Mom: Didn’t you just go to the bathroom before we eat?

Me: I pee a lot.

My Mom: (out of nowhere) He’s probably going to smoke.

Epi’s Dad, Mom, Uncle and Aunt: He smokes?

My Mom: Ever since junior high school.

Me (at approximately 7-8 metres distance): OMG!?@#

***

Okay so, now I was so busted. Totally.

The good thing is, I don’t have to play hide and smoke anymore. The bad thing is, this made me worried a bit because I didn’t have any idea how this would affect her parents.

But anyways, after a couple of chit chat, we continued our journey, destination: Epi’s home. It was my first time seeing her home so I had no idea at all about her childhood environment conditions. We arrived there.. probably like 30-40 minutes later. So yeah, it was quite far, considering that Lampung is not too crowded like Jakarta.

We sat down at her guest room and got served with a lot of sweets and cakes. With the addition of chinese tea, of course. What will a chinese ceremony be without a chinese tea, right?

And so My Mom began the conversation. She asked Epi’s parent permission to have me, Nathan The Great, to marry her daughter in 2 years, after I graduated. At that point, it never occured once in my head, that I would have a slightest thinking that I would get rejected by her parents. But all of the sudden, it came to me.

For fuck sake, I was shaking! I was afraid that her Mom will say: “I’m not gonna marry my daughter with a smoker.” or something like… “Your son is just too young for my daughter.”, etc.

But thank God my wildest imagination didn’t happen. Epi’s Mom agreed and we continued the next phase of the ceremony. It was time for me to put the necklace on Epi. I was still shaking at this moment, and God! both of my hands were sweating like crazy! I remember Epi chuckled a bit seeing me that nervous.

I’m quite sure you can imagine how hard it is to put a necklace on someone’s neck with your hand sweating like that. Finally, after 3-4 minutes, I managed to put the necklace on Epi.

That’s it. It’s all done.

(Seriously, I felt like I was a joke and made everybody laughed.)

Anywho, we chatted a bit more after that and then Epi’s uncle took me to the hotel.

It was exactly when I reached the hotel, unpacked my stuffs, I got this sudden and unpleasant feeling. I felt like I wanted to meet and spend my time with Epi so much, even with the fact that I was just with her a couple minutes ago. All of sudden, those 3 hours of waiting for dinner had successfully became the longest 3 hours in my entire life.I immediately called her, asked her if she wanted to come to the hotel now… and I had this urge feeling of wanting her to be beside me forever..

End of Part 1

To be continued..

Notes:

Sorry, but I just had 4 e-mails from my Boss and those are updates for bugs fixing. It’s already 1 a.m now, but I want to get it done before I update it tommorow morning. So I’ll continue this post most likely tomorrow.