In two hours it will be 2022.
I feel that two years of my life have been stolen. Two years in various degrees of quarantine and lockdown so much so that it has practically become a way of life. Humans adapt to circumstances and events, givens and variables --- and before you know, you have changed not only in the way you dress, the way you interact with people but more so the way you think and live your life.
I hoped that 2021 will be better than 2020. Nope, it was worse. Just when you thought it was going to get better, you find yourself like a hamster running around in a wheel. Just when your paranoia is slowly diminishing, somebody drops a bomb that makes you feel more afraid than ever. And what is worse is that you are getting used to it.
So what has the two years done to me? Let me count the ways. Let me jot down all these ideas and realizations as we bid goodbye to 2021 with hopes that 2022 will be kinder ... and more productive.
(1) I have been in so many zoom meetings that I now think of people as talking heads in boxes. I have just come to realize that for most of the days, I talk to people while seated behind my computer dressed decently only from waist up. Now you think of human interaction as a gallery view or speaker view and you really miss out sitting around a table with real human beings seated across you.
(2) Online stores have replaced the joys of retail therapy. Nowadays Add to Cart is the new panacea. There were days in the distant Old Normal when you decide to stay home to avoid spending money on unnecessary goods that you will later regret after unpacking from the shopping bag. Now even sitting behind a computer is dangerous: I surmise that Lazada, Shoppee, Skein, Zalora and NewChic has claimed a substantial part of my Work From Home earnings. To think online purchases used to be limited to Amazon.Com buys ... but has now become the way to shop.
(3) Online Banking and GCash have spared me the excuse to go out and get cash. Well, this is both good ... and bad. Online banking spares you of the traffic, the face mask, the (relic called) face shield and all the other anti-virus armor you carry to conduct the simplest business. But then access to online banking and GCash can also be an unrelenting part of the temptation to go online shopping and enjoy the hidden treasures of Facebook Market. The fact that you only need a passcode to pay up for things you want to buy makes the temptation to purchase almost addictive.
(4) How could we have lived without Grab, Lala and Mr Speedy? Yes, it is cheaper to spend two hundred pesos than to brave Manila traffic and waste money on gasoline. I would rather depend on the kindness and efficiency of Kuya Biker to deliver goods from me and to me but then again dealing with these men can be an entire blog all by itself. Pagpasensiyahan mo na when Kuya calls you up and asks for directions on how to get to your house. That can be quite a problem when you live in Alabang and Kuya is coming all the way from Santa Maria, Bulacan carrying a pot of hybrid gumamela to satisfy your plantito self which leads me to ...
(5) House arrest can make you discover things about yourself which you never imagined before March 2020. I remember asking God in January 2020 to give me just one to two weeks of respite --- the kind that will not require you to get out of the house while you thaw from brain freeze and seek the comfortable silence in solitude. God answers prayers indeed but he can go a bit too much. I asked for fourteen days ... not two years. And being locked up in my house, I discovered the joys of caladiums, monsteras, mayanas, elephant ears, hibiscus and succulents. I would also spend endless hours taking online short courses in Domestika that involve drawing and design --- which I gave up years ago when I opted to pound keyboards rather than draw with pastels and aquarelles. I mean ... would I have done these if I were still living that frenetic pre-March 2020 life?
(6) I realize that there will be an entire batch of graduating students who I have never seen in person. Let it be said once and for all that online classes are a bitch. Students take time to get into it --- some downright hate it --- and teachers are not exactly doing cartwheels preparing modules or spending hours talking to a monitor while making sure that the kids have not gone comatose on the other side. But it is sad, really ... oh, so sad ... because I believe that 40% of the joy of teaching and learning involves the interaction of humans sharing ideas in a common real time experience and not a virtual reality. And, yes, there is this batch of COMARTS majors who will step into the real world after their virtual graduation ... who I have spent terms teaching and interacting but who have never seen me in the flesh. That I believe is so sad if not tragic.
(7) You may be locked up at home but you have broadened your world. One thing that this pandemic brought me is a wider range of vision and perception of human existence. Damn irony there. The more you are confined, the more chances you have to savour a much bigger and diverse world. Yes, I succumbed to the magic of hallyu, suddenly consuming everything Korean and learning to appreciate not only their culture but how they are now conquering the world. I have started reading fiction from contemporary Asian writers --- mostly Japanese and Korean ---which I would never have devoured with as much gusto before. And yes all these streaming platforms have literally opened the floodgates for movies and video pieces that would have fallen off my radar if I were too busy. So you thank Netflix, Viu, HBOMax, AppleTV, Amazon Prime, Gaia, DiscoveryPlus , Upstream, KTX and Vivamax because the menus offered on your table are not enough to consume for a lifetime.
So did I actually lose two years of my life because of the pandemic? Yes and no.
Yes, I have lost two years of my old life but then no. No, because by accepting that the Old Normal is no more and that the New Normal is NORMAL I was able to go beyond making do ... and reinventing myself for making the most.
2022 is promising ... or could have been more promising if not for Omicron and Poblacion Girl who represented everything wrong about the people and not the virus. I had hoped that by the opening of the new year things would have eased out and we could have gone closer to what we knew as life before. Apparently not. But whatever. 2021 is done and 2022 will, should and must be better.
It is all a matter of the way you look at it.
Happy New Year.
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