Day 26 of having to work from home, and technically, Day 23 of the metro’s Enhanced Community Quarantine, or ECQ. I am writing this at what I consider to be the most unprecedented period in our lives — a pandemic that at this point has obliged people to stay home, tested the resilience of our healthcare workers, and claimed thousands of lives around the world. I had not thought our generation would be experiencing this, but here we are. And if one ought to survive this, the only way out is through.
At its early stages, there had been a hopeful kind of tone in my counting of days. I actually did a visualization exercise when it started: I imagined that I have already crossed the 4-week mark, and already looking back to what has transpired. I would be like, yeah those four weeks weren’t so bad, what with work still and treatment still, it’s just the usual minus the travel time to and from work.
And I thought there would be plenty of time. To clean up my everyday messes, find the right place for my every little thing. To sleep within a schedule, so that I wake up feeling rested. To eat healthier than I ever did, because food delivery has become a scarce commodity. To leisurely work on my time-consuming hobbies, and perhaps pick up some new ones that I’ve had my eyes on. To mull really deep thoughts, about my living condition, our sad state of affairs, the unforeseen future. But as with IRL, things do not usually go as planned.
Day 5, and I made the decision to leave the comforts of my home and headed to my mom’s, for the ease of getting to and from my treatment center. It was the most logical choice but certainly not the easiest one. At the most unusual of circumstances, I wanted to have been at my own place and I don’t think I need to explain why. That would have been my ideal scenario, but again, here we are.
It hasn’t been so bad, though there had been many times when I felt like crying for things that I miss. I miss my bed, and its sheets that would feel so cool when I land on there at night. I miss my work desk and how it didn’t give me an end-of-a-full-work-day back ache. I miss walking barefoot, peeking out at C5’s traffic from my veranda, tinkering around my art drawer, pulling out a certain book just because I needed to read a certain page. I miss the machines and doodads I’ve decided not to bring with me, like Andy, my robovacuum cleaner whom I’ve had many conversations with (hahaha!); my PS4; and oh dearest me, I fucking miss the A/C. But, always trying to strike a balance, I think it’s fair to say that there are plenty of things I wouldn’t be having now had I chosen to stay home. I don’t miss not having company, especially at this gadawful time. I really don’t miss eating takeout food, because lord knows home cooked meals are the best. I don’t miss worrying about laundry or going down 38 floors down just to throw my trash or generally just having to do all errands myself.
Ah but lately, as I’m losing count of the days into quarantine, as it’s ever so slowly inching towards the full month, I dunno, I feel closer to feeling deflated. With today’s announcement of an ECQ extension to two more weeks, I’m unsure how to feel: there’s a part of me that agrees because certainly, the issue isn’t resolved yet. Then there’s this part that’s been suffering Extreme Cabin Fever, and it’s longing to have the old normal back.
I know this experience isn’t unique to me, so yes, we’re trying so damn hard to manage this somersault of emotions that we’re in now. There had been instances when I read an FB post or watch the TV or chat with faraway folks, and then out of nowhere sadness would hit me, and a tear would well up. Or sometimes, the news makes me so angry that I want to scream and shout (and those times I really, really wished I were at home). There had been many, many days when I’ve silently thanked the heavens for keeping my fam and friends safe, because I really don’t know how I’d be able to handle it if otherwise. There are days when a video of my nephew bouncing around his playpen would be enough to say, hey, we’re fine, and then there are days when news of someone’s passing would make it a tad darker, a brush scarier. But here we are, and my dear, the only way out is through.
I really don’t know how to finish this post, and maybe it don’t need to have no proper ending until we reach the next chapter? Maybe when the lockdown is over, I can come back to this piece, this paragraph, and give it the closure it needs.
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Pictured: The ferris wheel at the Manila Bay
Finally Dee 