Usually I am inspired to write when I am alone, in a nice cozy cafe, with my laptop and maybe my kindle for comfort. Today, this blog comes from a very different place, a very different situation. I write now from my home in a world where everyone is encouraged or even forced to stay at home. COVID-19, this period will be remembered almost like a World War, except the enemy is a vastly different one. It is invisible, it latches onto anyone, Male or Female, Young or Old, Rich or Poor. Our usual thinking of banding together for safety would likely kill a large percentage of people. Instead, we are forced to be united yet apart. Working together to fight the virus by stay away from each other. It sounds so paradoxical and many still do not understand the message. Being stuck at home was never going to be difficult for me. I was very much an introvert from a young age, books, games, television are a comfort to me rather than a punishment. However, in this period, I slowly realize this "Heaven" was not to be.
A few major crisis hit me just before the virus locked all of us in our homes. My mom fell down and fractured her leg, my brother did not manage to get the job he was originally planned to and my own personal crisis, I failed in my relationship yet again. The world seems to be especially cruel at times, piling crisis upon crisis to see how much I can take. I know how people say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and how God gives the toughest challenges to those he trusts the most. Sometimes I do believe in those but sometimes I get tired as well. With everything happening around me, I feel like just hiding somewhere to absorb it all, to think through it all, to start my rebuilding process. Yet I am stuck at home, at my computer, facing this screen in front of me. I find myself staying up later and later because that is the only time where the world is quiet and I finally have my space to be myself. Yet I find this precious time is too little. I have to work, I have to finish the tasks ahead of me. The tasks snowballs daily and I am always catching up but never catching it. Through it all, there is a nagging feeling that I am not good enough, not good enough at work, not good enough at home, not good enough in a relationship. I know it isn't true, I am good and perhaps even better than many but they say the worst critic of a Virgo is himself and that is absolutely true. In my mind, I see an idealized version of me. One that can devote time to work and exercise efficiently and reduce the down time to a minimum. I am working to be that guy but I guess it will take quite a bit of time and effort.
Time, Effort, Space. All ingredients I need to rebuild myself again. I thought it would be easier with the times I have done so in the past but it seems this time, I lack two out of three ingredients that I usually need. It means the effort has to be gargantuan but nothing worth doing ever is easy. So I will rebuild, with lessons from my past, with the burdens I must bear, but never forgetting to put in a little hope that things will get better and it will never be this dark all the time. Like I always say, I am built like a ball, when life hits me hard, I will always bounce up harder. (Then I remember in gravity, the ball loses power and slowly bounces less...... but that would be another worry for another time) Till next time I come back to this Haven, stay united, stay home, stay safe.
Royston Tan
Rebuilding in Progress, Again.
