living with YOU

My thoughts as I drove to work today - is on how I am to adapt to living with this pandemic. Because clearly, it looks like it's here to stay.

I'll be honest that at this point, I have given up on all my 2020 plans. 

I have finally come to terms with the fact that my 2020 did not turn out the way I thought it would be. And that it never will.

Although I didn't exactly have any grand plans for my kids and our family, I now have to settle with the fact that we can't even spend our day-to-day as we knew it. Up until January til the end of February (when the gravity of this pandemic hadn't yet set in), we had gotten into a comfortable rhythm -- we were able to balance between work, kids' after school classes, weekend activities, family visits and everything else in between. 

Then, March came, and totally turned our lives upside down. Though I must say that there are many upsides to being in total lockdown (at least for our family), there have also been moments when our patience and sanity were tested -- especially work-wise, for me --

and those moments have made me realise (even more so) that the challenges I am facing is akin to a huge (HUGE) boulder, which is impossible to push. 

And with that, I (no, wait, actually WE as partners and parents) have learned to manage our expectations better.

...

The above is something that I wrote on 20th October 2020, when PKPB was implemented AGAIN after so many months of some sort of normalcy, and then today 30 days into 2021, I can't believe that not much has changed since.

To be honest, when PKP 2.0 was announced, I was flabbergasted. I simply could not bear the thought of having to go through the entire process of total lockdown again -- ONCE was enough for me... and that is HUGE coming from ME, considering how much of a homebody I am.

I guess the thought of having to manage wayyy too much on my plate really just got to me. I had gone through it before in 2020, where I needed to juggle between work, and kids online classes and keeping my sanity intact... and it really just took a toll on me in a way I never imagined it could. This is me we're talking about -- I've always prided in the fact that I have high pain  thresholds, high patience levels and I could take anything life threw my way, but the many types of movement control orders implemented (and the effects of it that followed) simply just changed me and I am not proud of what I am becoming. 

I used to tell people that we should not let life harden us -- and yet, as life with COVID-19 turned out that way it did, I found out that it was becoming increasingly difficult to follow my own advice -- I had let life harden me, as I hardened my resolve to just keep swimming. 

I may be one of the luckier ones (at least where my pay and livelihood are not so much affected), but I've got to say, that "life with COVID-19" as I know it, has somewhat turned my life upside down and tested me in ways I never thought it would. As I constantly find the best ways to battle with the demons inside my head, I do hope that me and all of you, however you are affected, will come out of this challenge unscathed. 

Until then, may we find the strength in our hearts to take each difficult step in our path, and to place our utmost trust in the Most Loving, Most Merciful -- that He will not put us a situation too difficult for us to bear.