At seventy-nine, I live alone.
And for the first time in my life, I feel completely at peace.
When people hear that, I notice the look in their eyes. A softness. A kind of pity.
They ask gently:
“Don’t you get lonely?”
“Isn’t the silence hard?”
I always smile.
Because living alone is not the same as being lonely.
My name is Angela. I’m seventy-nine years old, and I live in the same apartment that once overflowed with noise — children running through the hallway, doors slamming, laughter from the kitchen, voices talking over one another at dinner.
I was a wife.
I was a mother.
I was the person who remembered everything.
Appointments.
Birthdays.
Groceries.
Medicines.
The small invisible tasks that quietly hold a family together.
I gave my life to the people I loved, and I do not regret it. But I also carried a tiredness I never spoke about.
Then my husband died.
After that, everyone worried about me.
“You shouldn’t live alone.”
“You need someone to take care of you.”
“You should stay with your children.”
I know those words came from love.
But hidden inside them was another idea:
that a woman my age could not possibly enjoy solitude.
That silence must mean sadness.
At first, even I wondered if something was wrong with me for liking the quiet.
Then one morning, standing by the window with a cup of coffee in my hands, watching strangers hurry through an ordinary gray morning, I realized something that changed me completely:
I had not been abandoned by life.
I had finally been returned to myself.
Now I wake when my body is ready.
I cook what I want.
I rest when I’m tired.
Some days I speak to no one at all — and yet I feel full, not empty.
I read.
I walk.
I watch old films.
I sit with my thoughts without rushing to escape them.
The silence no longer frightens me.
It comforts me.
My children have their own lives now, and that is exactly how it should be. I raised them to become independent adults, not lifelong caretakers of my happiness.
Of course I still feel nostalgia sometimes.
I miss certain voices.
Certain moments.
Certain versions of life that no longer exist.
But nostalgia is not the same thing as regret.
What I feel most now is peace.
The peace of no longer needing to prove anything.
The peace of having spent decades caring for others and finally learning how to care for myself.
The peace of understanding that solitude can be a gift instead of a punishment.
So when people still ask me,
“Angela… doesn’t the night scare you?”
I answer honestly:
No.
Silence is not my enemy.
It is my home.
And here, at last, I feel free.
Just remember, this is top 64% of taxpayers.
However, since only 45% out of 17 mil labour force file taxes at all, that 64% of taxpayers = top 30% of workers.
And since our labour force participation rate is 70%, the top 30% of workers = top 20% of adults.
Yep, that's right. If you earned enough income to pay even RM1 in taxes, you are T20 among Malaysian adults.
How insane is that!!!
1: AI is hallucinating events, historical figures, entire concepts on Wikipedia
2: a task force of Wikipedia editors is detecting and deleting this stuff
https://t.co/PlfzVCZd4P
It’s a Monday morning. The MRT is experiencing a disruption. BUT there are announcements in stations and Twitter at the very least. So that’s an improvement. Is there data for delays that affected stakeholders can see @askrapidkl@MRTMalaysia
Blessed buka puasa meal yesterday with two families from Gaza, including Dr Aladdin, an academic who has just started lecturing at @ucsiuniversity. Many thanks to @n_izzah & @howardlee_my for facilitating the work visa application & for @PichaEats for the delicious food!
@unifi I’ve been experiencing interrupted internet connection repeatedly over the past 30 days or so. Really, what can consumers do when this happens? Can we demand a compensation?
@askrapidkl Even before 7am, this is not the usual frequency. MRT Kajang-Sg Buloh had been running for over 6 years, trend frequency adjustment shld be better already #MRTdelay041223