Living in the New Normal

The Circuit Breaker (Not a Lockdown), is 10 days away from being over.

We have been working from home for far longer than when it started.

We were blessed to be able to celebrate Chinese New Year (despite the slight undertones of worry and fear) unlike the people of Wuhan. I never really knew Wuhan or where it was until January this year. In the break over the holidays, I thought about how afraid the people must be, over there. Not knowing what will happen next, not knowing if they will have food supplies if they barricaded themselves.

All of that is over, I guess.

While my new normal began with the help of Animal Crossing: New Horizon, the fear of being infected (unnecessary as it was), the feeling of being stuck and imprisoned, I am finally in stride with rolling out of bed at 9 and getting ready for a 9.30am meeting. Keeping myself sane with the Pomodoro technique and the Calm app meditation sessions. That is what it is.

Keeping up with my reading, be it a Kindle book or a 1,000 chaptered Chinese web novel, escaping like I have before as a child. Escaping into worlds where wives stand up for themselves and murder their cheating husbands and ruining the lives of the other woman. Imagining how I would fare if I went back thousands of years and became one of the many concubines of the emperor. Imagining how the world would look like in an apocalypse. It feels almost…. familiar.

Somedays, I find myself unable to remember the day of the week so now I have that on the clock for my Mac.

Yesterday.

Today.

Tomorrow.

An infinite cycle (it feels like) that doesn’t seem to have an end.

I miss my boyfriend, Liang. Who is all the way in the suburbs of Melbourne, with a open heart surgery coming up sometime in the next two months. We were supposed to meet in April but that was cancelled with the travel restrictions. Phone calls and video calls and texts are just not the same. As sitting next to each other on the couch or eating takeout sitting on the floor at the coffee table. Meeting his friends and being invited over for a home-cooked meal. I miss it all. And the best way I can deal with it is to not think about it and look forward to the days where we can spend days together with no check-in deadline for the flight back home.

I miss going out for meals, even alone. I miss the sushi place at Novena that has the best grilled cod set meal. I miss going to Ichiban Boshi and sit alone by the conveyor belt counter to have lobster salad sushi. I miss going to the movies and having the middle seat three rows from the front of the theater. I miss going to the bookstore and buying more books that I can ever hope to finish reading. I miss journal writing in cafes. I miss it all.

What we have now can’t even begin to be compared. GrafFood. Deliveroo. FoodPanda. RedMart. Amazon Prime. Eating out of plastic containers is just not the same with the bustle of a restaurant. Eating Swee Choon dimsum on my sofa is nowhere near as satisfying as going with friends after a night out, semi-drunk and tipsy, spilling porridge on my jeans while just laughing and laughing.

I miss my life, even though many might consider my “regular” life as anti-social.

I was deeply moved when I had a birthday celebration at home with a durian cake. Followed by a session in Animal Crossing with K.K Slider and a few good friends. It’s weird but a good weird.

I can’t wait to go back outside without a mask. I can’t wait to go to the office (imagine that!). I can’t wait to see friends and their pets. I can’t wait to go for dinners with people I have not seen since 2019. I can’t wait to go to Seoul and seeing the busy streets of Garosugil. I can’t wait to go to Melbourne and seeing Liang.

For now I will bear with this. Because I don’t have a choice.

The positivity guru in me wants to make this a season of being with myself. But I can’t.

There is no silver lining in this. There is no “bright side” to people getting sick and dying, leaving their loved ones behind. There is no way I can spin this, as an advertising person, to make it all be ok.

I am anxious. I am depressed. I am confused. I am worried.

Mostly though.

I am scared.