Today marks my 20th day of staying at home since my city has declared Community Quarantine in response to the spread of COVID-19 in the country. To be honest, I’ve been enjoying staying at home.Because of all the time on my hands, I had been able to allow myself to do the things I’ve been meaning to do but haven’t because of school, or because I deemed I didn’t have enough time/energy/focus for it.Â
I had found a way to keep myself busy the past 20 days:Â Â
cooking (-ish, i don’t exactly cook cook, but I have been able to spend more time in the kitchen)
eating healthily (I have to admit my daily intake isn’t even close to ideal, and it’s a known fact to my friends/family that i’m a very very picky eater, which is why really I’m proud to say that I had been trying - my very best - to eat more food that would be healthy for my body.)
watching tv series and movies (during school time, I prefer not to start on a series that I would likely not be able to focus my attention to or would likely distract me from the tasks I should be prioritizing. I find it hard to focus when I know I should be doing something more important first e.g. school work, duty reqs, or simply studying; which is why I’ve only found the time to do this now)
reading (I’ve probably posted more than once about how I miss being able to read freely and for long periods of time without having to worry about all the other responsibilities I have, which is why this period is the perfect time to finally be able to read something other than nursing books again)
needlework - crochet, cross stitch, embroidery (if you’ve known me since grade school, you’ll know how engaged I was with needlework back then and into early high school; but for some reason, I had stopped doing somewhere in the middle of junior high school and since senior high, I had been meaning to get back into it again because for one, I missed it - it was peaceful and therapeutic and stress relieving and it gave you something to focus your energy and attention to; second, it reminded me so much of Nanay, it was one of the things she had taught me back then and something we would bond over and I liked that doing it again makes me miss her in a good way)Â
working out!! (this is probably one of my proudest achievements during this stay-at-home-time not only because I’m known to be very lazy when it comes to physical fitness and any and all related activities [I made sure to make my way out of having to do high school PE, a story for another post i guess, which is why I have never participated in a proper PE class until I was in college], but also because despite my body aching, badly, from it, I’m actually having fun??? +++ I do it with everyone in the family which makes it more enjoyable)
learning how to drive (I literally had my student permit since I was 17 but had only started learning how to drive now, which I am slightly embarrassed about. the real reason why I hadn’t been able to learn earlier was because my parents believed it was better for me to learn and master driving a manual car first before settling into driving an automatic one, and our manual car had only been recently fixed [about 6-10 months ago]. on the other hand, by the time the car was fixed, I was too busy and tired with school and duty that I opted to use my time on school stuff or to rest during sundays [my father worked on weekdays and I had saturday classes, so he could only teach me on sundays]; my progress has been slow since I only started 3 days ago but I’m really glad that I’m learning na)
learned more songs on the kalimba (I learned Maybe the Night, Here Comes the Sun, How Deep is Your Love, etc. but I have yet to master them heheheheheheheh)
doing household chores (to be honest, doing household chores is actually therapeutic and I additionally enjoy doing them now that I’m not time-restrained and I don’t have to worry about neglecting school-related responsibilities. the smol oc part of me enjoys all the cleaning to be honest)
the biggest takeaway from this is that my family has been spending a lot of time together and it’s been really fun and sometimes it makes me soft thinking that (although, no offense, compared to other families, we spend time, go out, have fun more often than others) we hardly get to spend time like this and do activities for long periods of time without me interrupting that I still have homework or studying to do or without my mom worrying about the business and etc. In the last 20 days, we had cooked, binged tv shows, played board games, worked out together, and had even moved all the mattresses from our bedrooms into the living room floor and we’ve all been sleeping there for a week now because it was easier for us to watch movies together.Â
Despite my being perfectly content with having to stay inside for long periods of time, being active on social media and reading current news daily has truly put things in perspective for me.Â
For the longest time, I had chosen to ignore engaging myself in political discourse with other people simply because I didn’t have much to say - I knew very little and basic information about what was going on in the Philippine government and had never bothered to learn more. In high school, I was not very invested in trying to figure out and understand how politics worked. I found it boring and uninteresting and frankly, I had found it better not exhaust myself trying to argue about something I did not properly understand and I left it at that for years.Â
Because of the response of the government to this pandemic, the shortage of health workers in the country, and everything else happening in between, I have arrived at quite a few thoughts:Â
At first, I honestly found it annoying that people kept going out and disobeying quarantine rules. It was only later on that I had realized that I was speaking from a position of privilege. Because of all the discourse online regarding that topic, it was only then that I had realized just how blessed I was to be enjoying community quarantine - to be able to stay at home with my needs provided for and not having to worry about my safety, my health, and my finances. I found it unsettling, that I was not able to think of the millions of other people out there who were struggling amidst the current situation, that I was so focused on myself and the people I knew that I completely forgot to look at the bigger picture.Â
Moreover, it was more unsettling to realize that the government was doing visibly minuscule if not irrational and unjust responses to combat the situation and ones without clear compassion for the general public and for the greatly impoverished. It was frustrating to think that from my position, I could only do so little.
On the other hand, what frustrated and bothered me more was that there still are a handful of people who continually dismiss and/or condone the actions made and orders mandated by the government and are too close-minded and apathetic to understand what exactly the general public is demanding for and enraged about.Â
To add to my frustration, I find (present tense) it hard to voice my opinions. I am afraid of having to engage in full-on active arguments with strangers, with people opposing the general public’s unanimous views even though I know in my heart that I can and that my stand is valid and important. Perhaps I am not used to debating and fighting for what I believe in, or perhaps I find it exhausting to aimlessly argue with people who have their minds set on one thing. But for now, I merely repost and retweet the things I support and find relevant - just to let people know where I stand among all of this. I cannot bring myself to voice out entire full-length opinions and to be so out there yet, but I would like to try to voice out my concerns more effectively in the near future.Â
For now, I truly hope for more assistance to be carried out for the marginalized and less fortunate - for those without a steady income due to the community quarantine; I hope for more deserved compensation for all the frontliners, for the implementation of mass testing and to abolish the prioritizing of government officials in this process as well as for the government to adopt and embody the responses and values of notable local governments in the country such as Iloilo and Pasig, instead of seeing these as threats to the presidency. Seeing everyone actively engaged in the current issues the country is facing is empowering and inspiring and I’m hoping more people follow suit, in order to send a powerful message to the government.Â
I apologize (but not really?) for the long post AHASHASB my mom has been trying to wake us all up early in the morning for the 2nd day in a row now and I have all this ~peace and quiet and calm to myself and I’ve been thinking about a lot - just trying to get these thoughts into writing so it doesn’t feel so heavy. I hope everyone else is finding a means to keep themselves busy and to help in the ways that they can and I pray pray pray that all this will end soon.. Hoping for better days :) char