It has been a tough week for all of us even harder for some of us who is a diaspora.
Today, the country I’m on now is on partially lockdown and soon Indonesia perhaps will close its border that being said maybe chance to celebrate Ramadhan together with family is small.
In this moment mindfulness is really important especially to who live alone. Yes we can contact friends and families virtually yet anxiety and worry for loved ones is lingered on my mind. People said work from home is nice but no, it is not, in this time. I spend some time thinking about how if?. Thinking about necessities that might be not enough for two weeks, thinking about drinking water plus I live with strangers. I put on disinfectant on toilet and on my clothes, take shower, and keep washing my hands until my hands dry, and that OCD-like somehow make my mind full cause now I began to put on my cup, plate, spoon, and fork on my desk inside my room. I couldn’t cope with many things inside my room. I have around eleven bottles as the water filter is not clean and my room is small, I got haywired. My house mates also put on so many stuffs. It is my biggest pet peeve, I can’t see many stuff at one place like just now I wanna cook but I can’t cause I freaked out seeing the fridge is full and there’s a leftover of spagetthi put on the stove and dishes are a lot left there without being wiped so I just eat a banana instead.
But then everything we do we always get options. Do I need to get angry? Do I need to calm?. Looking at what happen now, when the world is not in a good condition, this kind of thing is uncontrollable. Everyone is having clouds in their heads, obey the rules just stay at home so preparing breakfast until dinner is a must-I know some people like me can’t stand of things that are piling up but I also put water bottles on my room. So I try to understand and accept the condition that everybody is in work from home mode juggling between cooking and work so can’t even take time to really make things tidy-well my housemate is not leave things dirty but they have problem in organizing so it should be fine and acceptable unless if they left food on the sink I really can’t.
When I said isolation can kill us mentally, it really do. Just yesterday my chest feel tight I cried haha cause I miss my family so bad and I’m so worry about them, I contact all of them and spend time to rest just imagining things. I pour everything especially to my mother but as usual my mother is a patient and a fighter when she heard that I’m scared and I feel I couldn’t do anything she just said you can fly back tomorrow if you want or you can take unpaid leave, she said whatever suits me. Since my mother always leave decision open I think that no, I’m not gonna stop, everybody is the same like me. My friends who are living in their own apartment here also feel the same. Emptiness. Loneliness. Then I got a call again my mother said just be calm everybody is in this situation and this too shall pass. My mother, my sister, and my father is also working from home but they got each other physically while I’m here no.
I felt relieved after I pour everything to my family, my Indonesian friends who live in Malaysia, and yesterday my friends make a LINE group to have video call for college mates and during lunch just today we had a call sharing what is passed by in our everyday life and I feel so relief knowing that we all in this together, twelve my dear friends in a call during lunch time today. And I am so thankful of my sister who is a very positive person, she said to me often “don’t get skinny, I don’t want to be fat alone”.
That being said isolation teach us to not forget who made us today, look after each other, sanity, and most importantly remind us no matter how much we have, we are just human. Things that matter to us is still our own body and mind, not things.
This too shall pass ☺.
Anyway I attached here link to Harvard Business Review and Huffpost article that is related to anxiety in this time that make me feel I’m not the only one who feel harder to cope with life in this situation and I bet you can take lots of things from here:
- https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5e7239b2c5b6eab7794061a9?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067
- https://hbr.org/2020/03/anxiety-is-contagious-heres-how-to-contain-it
Stay safe and healthy everyone and I hope wherever you are you always pray for your loved ones and world to get better. Looking forward to see sun appear so bright next month and to all of you who is a diaspora, if you have anything contact your family or friends soon just checking each other if they are okay or when you are worry about something, in times like this I’m sure they also worry about you so spend time a day to have talk with them. Don’t worry, this is temporary.
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