First thing first — let’s spare a minute of our life to pray for those who passed away as victims of COVID-19. May the family be given strength and blessing.
It’s been a week of self quarantine. I’m a lucky few that got the privilege of working from home, with an actual home to shelter in as well. As a 48% introvert according to MBTI test I took some times ago, I found staying at home and not meeting people recharging with notes of regular check up on some friends or at least conducting some virtual human connection. What stressing me out honestly is the numbers they’re showing everywhere, the curve, the death, the survivors…we might only see numbers but those represent people’s lives.
There’s a sense that we might actually be in a brink of extinction with the amount of casualties caused by this virus. Every single time I open social media or the news, they keep talking about this virus and damages caused by the pandemic. I wonder if there’s really anything good happening in this pandemic? Then the case of gaslighting of Nicholas Chen appeared and I really lost it that maybe there really isn’t anything good happening in this world anymore.
However, looking closer to myself — i got this ability or blessing to always see something positive in people. This way, I never feel hatred towards anyone or any bad thing happening in my life. I always believe that for some reasons we might not be able to understand, bad things must happen and people have to do what they think is right which may not be impacting in the best way to our lives. Take it simply, I always put myself as a character in a romcom drama and all these bad things or people in my life must be there for the plot and character development. If I still think that the person is annoying or deserve to hate then I really need to pause and find other angles so I can understand and accept this person better. It takes time, but it always work.
Therefore, in the midst of pandemic through this writing..I’m sharing to you blessings I found caused by COVID-19 for me. Because in this chaotic and vulnerable world, we can use just a little bit of hope to hold on to.
- Coming Home, Living in Bandung Again.
I remembered how it felt almost 2 years ago, when I had to leave Bandung and my home for good because of adulting. I was bawling and crying my eyes out while I packed my stuffs. I knew I could always come back home in weekends but the thing that hit me hard was about how life would never be the same again. I would have to leave all these comfort and pretty much live on my own. Felt weird with this pandemic, it actually brought me to the same state of living as I left it. Working from home, I felt like this situation might actually the answer from God to every empty-nesters including my parents. They got to have all their children under their watch again, living under the same roof and had to see their face everyday. The house that was very empty, once is back as it was again for awhile. Loneliness that came as we become an adult, to have things taken care by ourselves is finally gone because we got our parents back again in our life. The joy to have foods served on the table hot, without having to spend 30 minutes of gofood/grabfood page browsing while thinking ‘what should I eat?’ everyday..is something I really treasure when I come home. These simple gesture that makes home a home, is something I’m really grateful of in this lockdown situation.
2. Giving My Body & My Mental State a Break.
Working life as a part of adulthood gave me so many stress and it affect my body as well. I often skipped breakfast or dinner because I had to attend some meetings or I had to take coffee daily so my brain can function. These unhealthy habits are built overtime, and it’s really hard to stop. By working from home, I was given full control of my daily life again. I’m not a morning person, but ever since this WFH thing happened I wake up early to have 1 hour of virtual exercise followed by 15 mins of morning shred routine. Then I have a breakfast and take a shower. I get to keep my skin healthy by not applying makeup, give my pores time to breathe. After that as I go through meetings, in between I can walk around freely or do anything that can make me feel less stressed. Something that usually in office I can’t do, like simply playing with my niece or some stretching breaks. My mental health is significantly getting better as well, I find that the stress in the office is always more tense and there’s always new things to worry about but not when I’m home, or maybe because now all the stress is being pushed away by the main stress caused by the virus. Not sure about this, but really I’m very happy with the WFH thingy and I find myself even more productive yet I still have time to do more things about myself other than just work.
3. Sense of Togetherness.
That ‘we’re all in this together’ vibe that I feel the whole time, seeing how my friends and co-workers keep looking out for each other. Sanity check, regular catch up, the ‘how are things’ conversations — we usually had no time for this. We either just have dinner as a routine or to avoid feeling lonely but being physically close might not be the closest we can get to a person. Through this self quarantine, I find interacting with my friends are in a more personal level. We might not be next to each other, but the weight of our talks are mostly very heavy as we start to care more about each other’s condition. We start to talk about our family, our well beings, many topics we tend to neglect because we usually met each other in a daily basis so no tendency to talk to that direction. As a people person, I’m so blessed with so many random video calls and stories trusted to me.
Those are top 3 things I find in the first 7 days of self quarantine with no outside human interaction at all. I know we all can get through this. This too shall pass. I hope my writings can give you some positive vibe and hope to get through self quarantine, aspire you to start look closer to everything surrounding you that you might take for granted before.
Stay healthy, stay sane.
!!!DON’T FORGET TO ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS & DRINK LOTS OF VITAMINS!!!
