My son and I, (Taluli, my angel, now 5 years of age) have been inside the confines of our barangay (Brgy 170) for approximately 4 weeks now. The Philippines has been placed in Extreme Quarantine for a month now and as a single mother living alone with a child, this has been a challenge mentally because I get to stay at home with my kid and be the best mother while I beat the anxiety that I always fought in being a person who needed to “always get it going on”.
March 12, 2020 — Duterte announced that there was a pandemic and that the country has been put in Extreme Quarantine.
As this news came I knew that my senses will raise a full alert and try to deal with this situation at hand. My son was supposed to have a moving up ceremony and was supposed to practice prior but things kept moving and school suspending that he and I just had to be still. There was panic and fear that I was physically trying to beat the anxiety attacks for the first 4 days of the ECQ. My mind was on a constant beating of worry, the job was at risk, bills had to get paid, my son has to step into grade school and I have to keep my life ongoing.
What Now?
As everyone panicked in the grocery store, my mind was in crisis mode. In the span of 5 minutes my head already had a 5-day meal plan, scurried in the grocery as fast as I could and in 30 minutes, gathered all I needed to be calm and watch what was happening at the confines of my home. I had a conference call with my fellow leaders in the office and have decided to put everyone in a “work-from-home” situation until this pandemic ends. What if something happens to me? Where will my son go and ask for help?
I realized I do not know my neighbors.
I looked around my community I saw that I do not know any of my neighbors (well aside from the person below me who knocked at my door and asked if I can turn my voice down). After 7 years of bidding farewell to condo life and being back at it, I asked myself “ Am I going to live the same passive way I lived in Condominiums and not care about my neighbors?” I thought about stuff like “who would need help?”, “ Who goes to work and not have any means to go around and work while all public utility vehicles were put on a halt?” There has got to be people here who can help another person in need now that this pandemic is happening! Immediately, I kept my eyes and fingers on our FB group sent everyone a message via a post and suggested that we have a community chat room.
Our community chatroom and camaraderie was born.
So many people agreed and I created a chat group for my neighbors on Facebook, added my trusted BizmoGo riders in the chatroom and advised everyone that if they cannot go out, they can ask our riders in the chat to run their errands. We got that going. Until neighbors started stepping up and doing things for neighbors that the chat group flourished. The group now has about 60 families selling goods and services to each other helping each other out. It greatly helped lower anxiety. Never a day that this community had hunger and lack. People shared food, people helped senior citizens buy medicine, single moms asked neighbors to look after their little ones while they shopped for supplies. There was so much love, appreciation and levels of respect that we planned and swore by having a post-pandemic party by the poolside and not give a flying fuck about community complains that would come after because “we endured mother fuckers”.
I realized my son is already a kid.
So staying in meant loads of one on one time between me and my son. The first week him and I ran a schedule, with specific activities that he needed to pick from a jar just to have structure, it went well for the most part. But when the second week came his anxiety got through because everyone needed to stay in and was forbidden to go out and play. That shook Taluli as he is an interactive team player that always wanted human interaction and a lead in the play, this current halt placed his personality skills on restraint. With 2 COVID -19 Positive in our community and strict instructions of not going out, the adjustment was not at all easy for Taluli. As a mom I was helpless and tried creative ways to keep him sane and back in.
The beauty of this pandemic came As I watched him interact with kids and adults when he could and in the time that I was having a one on one with him, I realized that man, I raised a wise, kind and endearing boy. There was even a time when everyone's’ vibration was shot, I guess he picked up on it and started listening to Christian songs. He has this favorite Song, Confiare En Ti, a Portuguese hymn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2WbbuwZclg he may not understand it but he Tells me that when he listens to that song, the song makes him feel okay and calm. Unbelievable.
I realized that the things I believed I was great in were the very thing I was not great at.
By week three I was digging the work from home gig that I was in that I started to explore options working from home permanently. I took tests for work from home jobs and have failed all of them. I realized I was too confident and I started questioning my self. Was I really that great of a person that I think I am? I was anxious and the manifestations in my body were coming in, back and neck and hand stiffening, again, of course, as always, solace in meditation and I realized, being still and know that wherever I may go, whatever comes my way, I will receive and walk with what I get because it will sustain me for the rest of my life, and the ability to pick up from it at the right time and moment already makes me a great person. I was living in the past for a very long time. I had to step down from my high horse a bit and started to ground myself in the lowest possible form and constantly pushed myself to the reality of the present moment.
The world as made clear in my eyes in this pandemic:
I started to see things clearer on the extreme side of life. There were several opportunities for new businesses to thrive and the people who answered the call geared their way towards the global shift of things. Companies suddenly created an online presence to thrive. The importance of logistics and farming is and has saved the human race in this pandemic. Politicians legally buying votes by giving extra money to everyone in their locale, to which seems additional help aside from what was already given by sticking up a note with their name on big bold letters on plastic and eco-bags. Politicians who are compassionate versus the passive self servers. The bad opportunists being swarmed forth by the good doing community. The good deeds of the government and their very core in handling this extreme situation and the people who only go from talking to typing with no contribution other than being able to criticize and project their own personality problems to other people. Also and before I forget the one tracked politically drained and confused mind of people who spend time attacking people over talking about what they feel, and if that goes against their views you are automatically put in a bin and muddled without even seeing beyond where you stand.
The fight to ignore may be unnecessary bullshit but as the blinders start to get out of the way, I started to distance me and just be the bigger man to not engage.
Nature, the beings, Humanity and I at the time of the Pandemic.
I watched a clip over from GMA News on how a wife of a dead COVID patient was being treated by their neighbors after being found out to be living in it. It was sad and it magnified how cruel people can be in San Juan City. This was a sad day for humanity.
It also paved the way for nature in dwellers to go back to their natural habitat as hundreds of turtles find safety in laying their eggs in beaches abandoned by humans because of the pandemic. Manila bay was reported to have changed it’s usual muddy color into somewhat a return in turquoise color. These were delightful stories of hope and reckoning in these trying times.
Several people with influence lending a hand in these times create a rush of hope in people's lives during this uncertainty. Tiktok paved the way in providing “at-the-moment” 15 seconds to a minute entertainment for people to get by with while being stuck at home. Some stick-ups even swore to not even try and be caught by that TIKTOK WAVE but guess what suckers, you said the same thing when Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and what have you were starting, so get over your self. Take a break and be happy!
Oh and let us not forget, ZOOM made us feel virtually close to each other and helped us in ways to interact with our beers on our E-numan sessions (virtual drinking sessions with friends) this pandemic up until the liquor ban came out and killed our vibe.
Oh 2020, how can I forget you ever existed for the rest of my life?? You turned our world upside, down and sideways than ever before.
In Conclusion:
This pandemic has become an x-ray of how our society has been, like God or the Universe’ way of magnifying what is wrong and what is good in the world. It has been like a life audit and it depends on what peripheral you choose to put your attention to, the target that you choose to fix your senses on is where your future will be moving forward this pandemic. It is an audit for us to choose clearer and better without too many blinders.
A Sense of Gratitude to Live By:
I am lucky to be able to live in this chaos called the COVID-19 Pandemic. It is my utmost gratitude to God and the Universe that I have been sheltered for a purpose and after this pandemic will live this purpose off of what is intended for. I hope that as everyone sat at home overcome and tread through because no matter what, God or the Universe has chosen you to live by the tale of what was the 2nd worst pandemic of the last 100 years of the human race.
After this, I do not think that Anyone can fuck with you anymore, I mean You have survived this invisible world war of the century, the rest of the world have to get over trying to get the best out of you. So stay calm sweetie, you are the champ of the century!
