The Cool Girl

Ameng is twelve years younger than me.

The first time she came in for the interview, she had a nose stud and long hair in soft curls. She was cool. A cool girl. She's tall, about 170cm, and when she wears her hair in two braids, she looks like a big kid.

She has loved Michael Jackson since she was small. She loves Steve Jobs too. Funny enough, so do I. She loves the hippie spirit, that free way of living that doesn't let the rules tie it down.

There is something in her that this tidy, orderly world doesn't have much of. It is freedom. Whatever she does, she sinks right into it, and enjoys the thing in front of her. I envy her that.

In 2024, we went to Dubai together. Out in the desert, she was completely free, a little wild. She looked so cool. I stood there watching her, and thought, maybe this is how a person is meant to be.

These three years, I have been through a lot. There were high times, and some very, very low ones.

I'm glad I had her. Every time, she caught me.

She is so much younger than me, but every time I couldn't hold on, she found a way, in her own way, to catch me.

The truth is, she understands things, and sees things, more deeply than I do. But she never points it out. Whenever I say something, she listens, patiently, all the way through. And only then does she offer, very politely, her own way of seeing it. She is in no hurry to prove herself right, and she never lectures me. She just listens quietly, and sets another way of looking at it gently in front of me. Slowly I came to understand that whether a person has wisdom has nothing to do with age. She is just one of those people with a kind of light in them.

The way she sees the world is not like other people. She always shows me things I can't see on my own. She runs digital marketing for Lyfairs, and many of the playful, surprising ideas here came from her.

Sometimes I wonder why the two of us get along so well. I think it's because we love the same kind of thing. We both love people who stay true to themselves, who won't be tamed by the world, and who go on to make things no one else could. Michael was one. Jobs was one. I think the two of us want to be people like that too.

Two people who are a little different, who met in one small company.

She came into my life like a little angel. To meet a cool girl like her, I am truly lucky.

— Marie, Founder of Lyfairs