Finding Normalcy

In this season of drastic changes, how are you holding up?

Just 3 months before year 2020 , I couldn’t wait to finish writing on my 2019 journal notebook. It was just this small 7x 6 inch notebook that I have managed to use with all the calligraphy materials I have purchased that year. Boy it was full of everything- thoughts, photos, schedules, etc. However, it was so small that I excitedly bought a new one ahead for 2020 that’s a lot bigger and everything to my liking. At that time, everything was just so thrilling!

Seven months into this pandemic and I have not written anything productive on it. Only scribbles. Only monthly budgets. No travels, no daily plans, not even calligraphies. I have lost all the excitement and thrill of writing my monthly plans artistically because I felt like there’s no point of planning anymore. I thought everything was just a waste!

At work, it is usually loaded with patients to treat. Normally, I can go for an hour of treating two patients simultaneously but with the assistance of an intern. Since the pandemic, classes have been modified by staying online, and clinical internship has not been allowed. This meant that we have to rearrange our treatment schedule, otherwise it will be chaotic inside the facility if we will still treat two patients in an hour by ourselves. Plus, considering protocols such as social distancing.

Before all these drastic changes have happened, life has been so busy. Now, it’s kind of a simple routine: work-home-work the next day. For months, this has been the usual and I wouldn’t say I was a bit tired or bored or complaining. I guess I was just caught off-guard with what has been happening around. To me, the future felt so scary and vague and hopeless.

But I have realized that since the pandemic, this has been my actual routine: Work-home(cook family’s favorite homecooked recipes, more time to play with nephew, more family time, more time to declutter clothes, more time to do the things I love such as recording songs, playing computer games, and my most favorite of all, afternoon naps and homemade dalgona coffee).

I guess this season has been about TIME. This season of change has been about giving more time to what is essential, simple and what matters. I think this is all about going back to our basics. To just slow down and reflect about how precious this life is. And that what life needs from us is just to be simple in everything.

I must say I am holding up pretty much okay. Well, midline. I have ups and downs in this season of change but I think I am ever growing. I think I am getting better at knowing myself and in what I am capable of feeding my mind and my heart.

I hope you are also holding on.

And ever growing.