Let’s start with paying bills. 

As an adult, you must pay your bills on time. You must not charge your bills to your credit card because that will just cause you misery. Bills, like utilities and school fees, must be paid with cash or liquid funds. Set aside a portion of your salary to pay for bills. And in order to do that you must have a job. 

Get a job. 

Like a real one. A full-time one and if possible, not just freelance. Sometimes having any job will do. As long as you’re employed and get paid each month. But no. You really should have a job you like. If you manage to get a job you like and be able to pay bills with cash and not credit, then congratulations, you already have half of the challenge of being an adult fulfilled! 

I’m serious, it is a big achievement even if you are paid peanuts. If you love your job and it allows you to pay bills, then you’re good.

Bills, however, are not fangirl expenses. That is a whole other thing. That is a huge grey area that even an excel freak like me cannot calculate or tabulate in its entirety. Do I classify this expense as credit card expense? So that it becomes just another short term debt? Or is it an entirely separate monster on its own? 

Hmmmm……..

No. If we were to classify fangirl expenses as just another short term debt then we’re not going to be able to cultivate it in a healthy manner. We’ve got to face this demon head on. Because let’s admit it, fangirling is a demon. An expensive and emotionally invested demon.

So like bills, fangirl expenses, at best, should be paid using liquid funds too. So even if you have to charge your credit card, be sure you can pay it off 100% with next month’s salary. That kind of thing. It has to be manageable.
And those are my rules. 

1. Get a job I like.
2. Manage my salary so that I can pay bills and fangirl expenses in cash.

If a time comes where I can’t pay for bills and fangirl expenses in cash, then I must give something up. It could be cancelling some subscriptions (like astro news package –i don’t watch the news–) or like this year, stop buying albums in bulk. Stop going to concerts.

Be an adult.

In order to be a more responsible adult, I declared myself semi-retired from fangirling.

I don’t know where this book* is headed. And do I even want to write this book because God forbid, my almost-teen will read it and vomit out of embarrassment, and be angry at me for ruining her life. She is not at that stage yet where she blames her mother for everything, but I expect we will get to that sometime soon. Haih.

I went through that phase of blaming my mother for everything. Sometimes I still do it. And I’m almost 40. I think, perhaps, this whole ordeal I’m going through is because I’m almost turning 40. Next year. So not only do I have my own complicated feelings regarding age and adulthood, but I’m also forced to deal with my eldest daughter’s impending teenagehood… it’s overwhelming. 

And not only am I turning 40, I am also a fangirl turning 40. A fangirl mom turning 40.

What the heck is a fangirl mom? Like wth is that?? 

Actually, among the younger, unmarried generation, that generation of teens, people like me are called “mom fans”. When I first heard it, I had to do a double take in my head. I stared at the girl who said it to me for a whole 15 seconds at least before replying. We were at a Winner concert, me and my two daughters, when the girl beside me, who was in Form 5 of secondary school, asked me if I had bought my concert tickets or did I get them for free? I said, I bought them. Oh wow, she said, are you… a mom fan?

I stared at her. I was shocked. I know what a mom fan is. A mom fan is a mom that becomes a fan after finding out about the group through her child or other similar situation. Like they be moms first and not a fangirl. But I is different yo. I was a fan before I became a mom. But then… noooo… Winner debuted in 2013 (techinally 2014), so that means I became a mom before I became their fan. But I was a fangirl all my life, like since I was 10…. so…

I stared at her and just said, Yeah, to keep it simple. Like I’m not going to explain to her my whole entire fangirl life history just to get out of being labeled a mom fan. Because I am a mom and I am a fan. Keut. Okay anyway, I said Yeah to keep the conversation going with this highschooler beside me. I found out from her that the concert organizer had given out a lot of free tickets to get the stadium filled up. She tells me that Winner isn’t as popular as ikon in Malaysia. Which is like heh for me, cos I like Winner better. But anyway, not the point. The point was, a lot of the families that were there that night were there because of free tickets. She pointed out to me all those people in the crowd… mom, dad and kids all together in the audience to see Winner. 

“I bet they didn’t buy VIP tickets for the entire family. Even the dad is here…”

I inhaled a long breath and took it all in. She was right! I was probably the only mom there that dragged her kids to see Winner and not vice versa! I mean even though my kids love Winner, they’d probably ask me to go see Twice instead, you know what I mean. The Song Mino fan here is me, not them. 

The thought of it swirled in my mind a lot that night. I was there to see Mino sing live. And while he was on stage, the girl beside me screamed for Mino too and called him her husband. Lol. It was cute. Oh to be young… I wished I was back in high school, too.

That night was not a turning point or anything. I’ve been feeling this weird “do I stay or do I go” thing since 3 years ago. Up to that point, I’d always spent a good part of my income on fangirl activities. But when my kids started going to primary school, I thought I should cut down and spend some of that money on family. Like start becoming a more responsible adult. And that was when all of this entire adulting thing became harder. It was always hard, but now it was just harder.

And even harder now that I’m going to turn 40. Like what have I got to show for myself at age 40? Some of my juniors are already Dato, and they not even 40 yet. Winner are millionaires already (probably) and they not even 40 yet! What have I got to show for myself?? That thought was so depressing. 

And that’s why I am here telling you all this. Like I feel the need to jot down a manual for other would-be fangirls-turn-moms. There’s sooo many things you gotta do well in life so that you can continue being a fangirl. So many things.

*I called it a book, but it’s not really. It ended up being a blog.