Looking from our balcony, I breathed in the familiar summer breeze that surrounds our house these days. It’s already March of 2021, it’s been a year of the pandemic and the quarantine, though everything about it seemed like a big blur to me. Did a year really pass? The pandemic really made me question my reality in a way that my concept of time is broken to the point that I have to double check if it’s 1 pm rather than 5 pm like what the clock says. This quarantine journey is a roller coaster that won’t be stopping anytime soon. As I stare into the green surroundings, I recall everything that had happened to my life and how this quarantine had changed me for the better or worst.
March 2020
The sky started to dim and not long after, the rain started to pour. I snuggled myself inside the makeshift cocoon I made from the thin blanket the hospital gave me. The cold from the rain outside and the air conditioning of the building combined made the people around me put on double their jackets, while I only felt a bit chilly. Was it because of the low platelet and red blood cell count that made me almost cold-blooded? Or was it my limbs feeling numb from the lack of exercise for weeks making my body fail to recognize the temperature ? As I look to my right window to watch the raindrops race each other down the glass pane, I wonder if this would be the last moments of my life.
That memory was in 2012, now it’s 2020 and life couldn’t be much better for someone like me. Life during this pandemic is quite cruel for someone who had multiple near death experiences from different viruses. I even used to joke with my close friends that I had checked most on the list of illnesses you can get that’s near death. They would always feel sympathetic towards me, but I was nonchalant about it. Ever since I was a newborn, I was always in and out of hospitals. Most of my memories contained being attached to either a dextrose or an oxygen tank. Every month, I would get a virus, then the next month I would get a new one that season, and then another one that can easily hospitalize me for weeks. Dozens and dozens of medications flowed through my veins that my liver could already be damaged at an early age. Even if I did have memories, all of them became hazy and hard to remember because of the medications I took. I had to live with my asthma and the multiple illnesses which made it easy for me to get also because of my weak immune system. Not to mention the hereditary illnesses, such as diabetes, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, skin disease, etc. that I could potentially have some day. My parents however are trying to prevent the COVID-19 to be part of that growing checklist of mine. They knew from the experiences I had that one close contact of the virus could easily be fatal to me, like the dengue fever that almost had me knocking on death’s footsteps. The only thing that someone can do to prevent getting sick from this pandemic would be locking them up inside the house like how Rapunzel got stuck inside the tall castle, away from the dangers and viruses of the world. Even though it was hard for me to stay at home in the middle of a school semester, I was actually okay with it. I was able to sleep more at home and my anxiety eased for not having to worry about any task that needs to be done in the near future. I still miss my college friends dearly but I guess this can be an opportunity for me to enjoy my summer with my family.
April 2020
As much as I liked socializing, I was a homebody. I liked the feeling of not doing anything and not having to worry about schedules that I have to fulfill to get through the day. When the community quarantine started in March 2020, I was relieved. I forgot to study for an exam for my Japanese language class and had hoped that it would be postponed. The quarantine made it possible for me to have more time to review for the exam, however, I didn’t expect it to last this long. The first weeks of quarantine were lovely. My parents stayed at home for a while after constantly being out for work. I was always left alone to wake up and fend for myself before going to school. It was even sadder that I was an only child that had only cats to say goodbye to in the morning. My parents being home meant that I could ask them to cook hot meals rather than fridge leftovers or half-cooked boiled eggs. Being home also meant that the big windows were open for the morning sun and fresh air to come through compared to the dark room that makes me feel sleepy in the morning. I ran to the sink to wash my face off morning stars and gargle. I ran back to the balcony and saw my parents re-pot the plants multiple times. I wasn’t really well versed with plants. I don’t have a single idea of what the plant’s name could be, I just call them what I’m sure they are. “Ma, Pa, good morning,” is what I would say first, then they would reciprocate differently each day depending on their moods, and right after I would look for my dad. In a very baby sounding tone I would say “Ma, asan na si Tatay? Gutom na po ‘ko.” My Dad was the cook of the house. He was well known from both sides of our family and my mom’s office mates that he was good with his cooking skills. As his Unica Hija, he would always be ready to cook for me, depending on his mood. I can’t really deny that I was a bit demanding sometimes, but anyone would be if you can’t think of anything else other than consuming food. He would oftentimes be annoyed by it saying that I was spoiled rotten, but when I do the tasks on my own, he would always come swooping in to do the chores instead. It made me question what his love language towards me truly is. Being at home and being with my parents makes me feel warm even if we don’t really fully understand each other. I wouldn’t trade this feeling for anything.
May 2020
It wasn’t all sunshine and daisies after a while. My dad had to stop his construction work due to the travel restrictions and my mom’s paperworks for her pay couldn’t be processed due to the workers who were also in lockdown. It also means that our food stocks are running out, purely because my dad tends to over consume everything and it’s making my mom more anxious of how we can sustain ourselves with little to no money left. The grocery lines that time were too long, my mom can’t even imagine going out because she’s a senior citizen already, while my dad can’t stay under the heat of the sun for too long due to his high blood pressure. We just couldn’t risk paying more in the future. We had no choice but to just buy from the neighbor’s sari-sari store that has high prices to begin with. Coffee and instant noodles were double the price from the grocery store. We were able to get by from the loan given by my mom’s boss after the five months of quarantine. We were already buried in piles of debt and as days went by, the debt we had would come pouring at us like a rainstorm. I also lent my leftover money to help a little bit with the bills and food budget we need to survive. We slowly started to eat food leftovers and waited for the barangay officials to provide us with relief packages. The officials weren’t that organized in handling out the food rations either. A group of officials were always present as if ignoring the current situation of the pandemic. Even though it was like that, we can’t say no to free food in times where we are struggling to budget. I even had to eat Lucky Me noodle soup for almost a week and it made me feel like I was bloated from all the salt I consumed. I craved fruits and vegetables but the wet market was still out of our reach. I would often imagine my life outside of quarantine and how I took for granted that freedom I had from the virus. Every day of face to face classes was a chore to me, the air conditioning of the classroom relieved that summer heat from outside. I would often get to class early and I would wait for my friends to be able to chat. After class my friends would often ask me, “May class ka pa ba? Wala na? Tara lunch!” That feeling of having someone physically with you is what I miss the most.
June 2020
While the quarantine got longer, I was also slowly getting more attached to socializing. It seemed that my friends had other ideas. They were often occupied with their own bubble and I felt like I was disturbing them from their individual schedules. Slowly, I started to get detached from socializing with them too as I don’t like to feel like a burden when striking up a conversation with them. I tried to find solace online, just like back when I was in high school. I used to be part of an online community with fellow One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer fans on twitter to get away from real life. I used it as an escape from being an only child and being bullied by the majority of my class. It was a way for me to make my personality shine and not my looks. I thought that if my real life friends didn’t like spending time with me, then I’d just make new friends again. I have liked K-Pop for almost four years now, but I never had a chance to be part of its online community due to my busy schedule in university. It was June 2020 when I came back to the twitter sphere. It was subtle tweets and interactions with fellow fans. I liked the K-pop group NCT as they have a new concept of having unlimited members in their team. The boys were so lovable that they became the people I find comfort in. I would start the day with a “good morning” to my mutuals and I would wait for them to reply to boost my presence online. It made me feel like I have something to do again. I set small goals for myself to make the whole experience fun. I decided to have at least 10,000 followers as my end goal. However, I was still trying to get into the loop on what’s going on with the fandom and I was very lost at that time. I was about to give up when I saw a tweet asking if anyone wanted to join a group chat from the same fandom that I was in. I was feeling bored and I knew that was one way to get more followers so I decided to give it a try. I didn’t like communicating with a lot of strangers online at the same time but I decided that I have to be a better version of myself online. I decided to be the bida-bida in the group chat, I decided to put my communication skills in good use. There I met a small group of people consisting of co-fans like me that lived in the Philippines. Their names were Kaye, Joanna, Kit, Lexi, Pearl, and Mish. The other members of that group chat became inactive and only the seven of us remained. Outside of that group, I also met a bunch of other fans, such as Eri, Janyca, Tala, Gwen, Nads, and Viya who was also an Iska like me. We became really close and I introduced them to my existing group chat so that I can message all of them all in one place. I also dragged my other online friend Jou, who was from my old One Direction fandom. We were able to add more people in the group chat and it totalled to 32 people. “Parang NCT members na din tayo sa dami.” The small community I unknowingly made became my solace for almost eleven months. I’ve gotten closer with Eri and Jou. Eri and I first met when I tweeted out asking for help if someone can verify my WeChat account. It was so that I can support the Chinese sub-unit of NCT that was newly added. “Eri pa-help. Ayaw ako i-accept.” She became this support figure to me in those moments, a virtual best friend I could count on. As months progressed in our friendship, she would send me random merchandise from groups and would sometimes lend me money so that I could complete some of my collections. I however used some of it to lend to my mom for our finances at home instead. I didn’t expect anyone to be that willing to help someone like me. The online world started to make me feel detached to my real world responsibilities, that when it was time for the online school to start, I dreaded each time of it.
August 2020
My 22nd birthday. Oh how I remember how badly I wanted to celebrate this mile stone in my life with a fast food kid’s party. I’ve always wanted to experience being a normal kid for once since my childhood was spent entirely inside hospitals. Those plans weren’t able to push through due to obvious reasons. I tried to console myself by sulking inside my room the whole day. In 10 years of friendship, this was the year that my high school best friends wouldn’t be able to spend my birthday with me. It felt like a normal day when it was supposed to be a special one. That night I decided to check out my twitter and I saw a mass of greetings from my close friends. It was unreal and it made my day a bit better. This wasn’t the birthday I intended to have, but at least I’m still alive and well is all that matters.
October 2020
Time flew by so quickly that I forgot that it was almost the start of a new school year. The new school year came during the time NCT was about to make a full album comeback. This type of comeback would be a normal occurrence for other groups, but since NCT has an unlimited member system, they would only release a full album with all the members who were active once every two years. It was the first time for them to come together with 23 members. It means daily updates and previews, it was pure chaos in the fandom. This was also the first time that we’re taking the online class route. I was trying to get the feel of the online environment at school as deadlines would pile up. I would try and relieve my stress by spending time with my fandom. Endless scrolling through tweets went by and before I knew it, the day ended already. It became a distraction for me that I forgot what my priorities were, but the group chat was there. They would often read my fiction drafts and were amazed that I could write. I knew I was mediocre, but seeing that they were eager to read more of what I wrote gave me motivation to continue. We started to have game nights on Friday to spice things up. We always played quizzes about our favorite groups and played Werewolf online. Not long after that we created a bond, but a group chat with six people became boring and repetitive, that’s why we decided to recruit more members. We started gaining more members and my other close individual friends were now also part of that group. I became their “mom” figure and somehow that made me feel like I have something of a purpose during the quarantine. I started to plan games and events that would entertain us for hours. Days and weeks go by and the feeling of loneliness gets buried by the constant waiting of Friday nights and movie nights with my newly found online friends. Every month we celebrated our monthsary and played more games with each other. We also liked to vent with each other about problems in our fandom community making the bond with each other much stronger.
Sadly, this routine didn’t last long as school was about to start for most of us, while some of them had work. Friday nights turned into the only days most of us were active and the only days we had time to message each other. It felt like we were drifting apart. One of the members, Pat, decided to ask us to play bingo for some idol merchandise. It was a day where we were all free so we decided to video call. The group felt alive again, we talked and ranted all night. When the night was about to end we decided that we should all go on Discord and do a small “podcast” to catch up with each other. We asked Nads who was the most active in the fandom on the updates and we would give our own opinions on the situation. The whole discussion experience really was refreshing, it was a safe space to let your views be heard and for someone to be educated without all the negative aspects of it. Before I knew it, they already gave me knowledge and confidence about dealing with the real world.
November 2020
My parents started to work at that time also and the feeling of loneliness started to creep up on me again. When I woke up, the windows were shut, the food was cold, and the house felt emptier than before. I tried to focus on school but all my tasks are jumbled up in my brain. My body can’t differentiate between different times of the day. My body felt that it was still 1pm when in reality it was already 6 pm. I’ve also developed short term memory loss. I would unknowingly pause for a long time trying hard to remember what task I should do. I had to repeat the sentences out loud to not get side tracked, just like a zombie dictating her own orders. As I try to start prioritizing my life outside of my online friend group, the more I get detached from then slowly. The constant messaging became stagnant and we would have different sleep schedules which resulted in not being able to reply to one another immediately. I also started to stray away from the fandom as it was starting to get toxic and I was always emotionally involved that it affected my work in a negative way. Another reason that I got detached is because of how I wasn’t able to express my opinions on the matter in case others don’t agree with me. The constant anxiety of having to be careful with everything you say started to mess up my mind and I had to end it there. The situation gave me no choice but to make a private account where I can finally gain my comfort and confidence back. It was a way to still be updated but not get involved with the fandom. It was a win-win situation for me as I was able to still talk to some of my close friends and not worry about anyone talking bad things behind my back. A new safe haven.
December 2020
I saw my online friends started to collect and invest money in buying photocards. I also have my own collection filled with my favorite member of NCT, but I wasn’t that enthusiastic with collecting, until I saw everyone in my group chat started to collect. I saw great deals and Christmas was also coming which meant that I would get gifts from my Aunties. and Uncles. Our family were used to sending money during the holidays as they were physically unable to be here, some due to their old age, while some are on the different side of the world. I got some money and I felt like this could be a good gift for myself after half a year of not spending. I started to buy cheap photo cards to cheap albums, but slowly my spending problems had gotten to me that I didn’t realize I was spending 400 pesos for a single piece of paper with a man’s selfie on it. It’s insane, but I tried to control myself, but then I see a cheap deal and I buy in a single click. We were doing fine financially at that time, but I know that at the back of my head, we’ll be short on money once again. The thrill of buying made me blissful, for now.
February 2021
Not much happened between that time, my Christmas money is almost gone from all the spending I did. I knew I had to stop and save sooner so I did. I kept 2,000 pesos in my wallet for emergency safe keeping and when I say emergency safe keeping, it means when my mom needs extra cash, I could lend her my savings. As I was minding my afternoon, I got a weird notification from a food delivery app that said the food that I ordered is coming in a few minutes. Confused, I opened the application to see that I did have an order, but I didn’t order anything. I started to check my profile to see if I was hacked, and I was. almost over two thousand pesos was ordered using my account with my mom’s debit card connected to it. I was in shock that I cried and I tried my best to solve it with the help of my best friend. We tried everything but the customer service of that company was bad and they kept on blaming me instead for their security problem. I had no choice but to tell my mother the truth, that I needed her to go to the bank and ask for her t change her card. She was livid and se became teary eyed. Why was I so dumb to not remove that in the first place. I had no choice but to give her back the money that she lost. I had to sell some of the merchandise that I bought just so she wouldn’t feel helpless. We waited for hours for the bank to revert the payment and I even stood my ground when demanding them for an investigation. My mom decided not to push through as she felt that it would cost us more if we decided to go through it. I still felt really bad about that incident and that overall made me stop spending all together. The good thing that came into it was that I was able to go out again after almost a year inside of my house, and I was also able to spend it with my mom.
March 2021
I tried to get pre-occupied with games to be able to practice my thinking and strategy skills after being almost brain numb after being at home for so long. I’ve been seeing my friends play this new game and I decided to try it out. It was called “Genshin Impact”. It was a gacha and an open world game. At first I was confused but I slowly started to enjoy it. They say that playing games is bad and could easily distract a person, but for me it was the opposite. I did my homework and tasks early to be able to just think about the game. I submitted most of my outputs on time. However this healthy routine went downhill when my mom’s co-workers started to have family members who caught the virus. I remember waking up on a monday, wondering why there was a female voice talking just outside my door. My poor memory thought it was just the weekend, but I checked my phone and it wasn’t. I went out and saw my mom watching TV. “Ma, wala ka po bang pasok? Monday ngayon diba?” she would then just nod and I would ask again. “Yung Papa ni Meldy nag positive.” Week after week after week they go on lockdown. Which means that my parents were always at home. I got worried the most that my parents could also catch the virus, not just me. My mom kept us as safe as she could, but one day we all went into a full panic. My dad started to feel weak and he developed a fever a day after the lockdown started again. My mom decided that my dad should isolate it in case it was the virus. We were all scared and worried. He was the only one who could shop for food. My mom is already a senior citizen, which means that she can’t go out either. I offered her that I can as someone who’s old enough to be allowed to shop, but she knew my health was vulnerable. We had to live off canned foods that we can afford for days and we had to cook for my dad also who was always hungry. As if this was another of our quarantine bumps, but much worse. I helped around the house so that my mother wouldn’t feel all the burden on her shoulders, which also meant that I was missing deadlines as I was too occupied with chores and being always on call when my mom called for help. It made me feel detached from my work and progress that I can’t even put emotion into my work. When all settled down and my Dad just got the fever due to a wound infection. It was a sigh of relief but the cases in my Mom’s office didn’t stop. The constant anxiety would always creep in that I forgot to do my tasks properly. The game I was playing became my new escape as I was getting detached from my K-pop fandom. It made me feel like I was exploring this new world and analyzing the lore of the game made it more exciting for me. It gave me a spark once again. It was an activity that gave me a goal and a purpose. My friends all started to play the game also and it was a way for us to get together just like how it was real life. Instead of constantly thinking about the problems that would put me into an emotional spiral, the game helped me channel my attention into something that makes me feel blissful, even if its just a short while.
June 2021, today.
It has been three months that passed, but it felt like a week. The game was still a stress reliever for me and I enjoy seeing my progress through out the months. It’s also the last few days of school. A day feels shorter than it should be and the rain comes often telling us that the summer officially ended. Our friend group’s anniversary celebration also finished and it made me reflect on the past year. During this whole pandemic I was able to experience different highs and different lows in my life but I was always able to get through all of it by different means. I may have struggled but I wouldn’t have felt the bliss if I hadn’t experienced the negative aspects of life. This constant change and cycle is normal for us to grow and learn as individuals. As the current days go by it feels like I’m repeating this cycle in my life all over again, but perhaps from all the hard earned lesson I got from the past year, I would be able to approach this new year with a different outlook of the current situation I’m in. I may try to pursue being the better version of myself for the next days that will come. This pandemic would seem to not be near its end, but as humans, it won’t be able to stop us from growing into our better selves.
To be continued…
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